


Love Is A Little Box (For Home To Lay Inside)

by notoriousjae



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Emotions Discovery, F!Byleth, F/F, Femslash, Flashbacks, Jk we all know Hubert is best Pegasus Knight, Let's be honest the whole cast is there and Byleth loves all of them, PLAGUES, There will be a lot of, This story is a lot of gay and a lot of Byleth figuring out what Emotions :tm: mean, Violence, Well not the whole cast but most of it, also, and Hubert threatening pegasus, and politics, and potential character death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-14 03:40:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 50,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29039517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notoriousjae/pseuds/notoriousjae
Summary: "She’d read home was a place people returned to after war--the sort of place people hung their armor and their coats and stored these precious things so that they wouldn’t be lost or covered in dirt and blood. It’s the place where families sit and they have dinner and tea and laugh about political situations in the West of Fódlan and then cry about them when they escalate, or watch a crackling fire in the hearth as they settle on the sheets puddled on the floor.It’s the place where they feel things--anger and joy and pride and everything else they’ve ever felt and never recognized--and the place they protect because it means more to them, in a single place, than any other place they’ve ever been."Byleth has read about many emotions, but she never understood them. Not until Edelgard.F!edeleth fic all the way.
Relationships: Dorothea Arnault/Petra Macneary, Edelgard von Hresvelg & My Unit | Byleth, Edelgard von Hresvelg/My Unit | Byleth, Ferdinand von Aegir/Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 48
Kudos: 121





	1. A Heart

**Author's Note:**

> I recently beat Three Houses and did what most people do, I think: screamed into a pillow for twelve hours straight before immediately going to play it again. 
> 
> My first route was CF. It shows.
> 
> I actually accidentally wrote this fic while writing _another_ fic that is...much longer, so this is a much shorter love affair of mine. 
> 
> I ship Edeleth to the moon and back. I'm sorry about everything in this fic. I know this is probs a dead fandom (yay patient gamers) but I appreciate anyone who manages to read this.
> 
> I'll update weekly so I hope you're here for the ride!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She’s read about Happiness: it’s the thing people lose in war; the emotion that sparks up the edges of their lips into a smile, or fills them with contentment when faced with something they’ve done that’s good ; it’s the emotion that everyone fights for and searches for as desperately as love, just as elusive and fickle, or so it seems in books and operas and plays.

It's a peaceful day in Garreg Mach.

The sun catches along the lightly swelling waves of a familiar pond, wrinkles in blue caused by the light winds dancing Sothis’ fingertips along its surface. It’s hard to know whether Sothis was a Goddess but it’s _easy_ to imagine that contradictory carefully care _free_ smile full of restraint and curiosity as small hands skimmed along the ripples of the pond in the heart of Garreg Mach, feeling moisture beneath palms--learning what water might feel like, again, for the both of them.

 _You need to experience things,_ Sothis would say and Byleth _would_ experience them, because she had never known to experience them, before. 

Or maybe Sothis would just...hover behind Byleth’s shoulder as she watched a line bob for an hour before she yawned, disappearing into the cold of a tomb she’s made in a baby’s chest that became the casket nestled in a woman’s.

It’s easy, too, to understand why people think Sothis is _everywhere_ , because Byleth feels her, still. In the air...and the wind...and the water--

They were both familiar with the pond at Garreg Mach and a sense of... _something_ \--easy; warm; familiar?--stirs quietly in Byleth’s chest as she watches the pond and thinks of green eyes and hair and soft fingertips before she hears paper rustle a little behind her.

The feeling transforms a little like that tomb had.

“You know, Edelgard,” Byleth hums, chin dipping over her shoulder to watch her--a rare moment where _both_ of them happen to actually be in the same place without a need for something sharp and pointy (or a strategic exit). “Fishing is a tactician’s game.” 

Edelgard chuckles quietly to herself but looks up from her book all the same. Edelgard having time to read is probably rarer than them sharing time together, at all, and pulling her from it makes Byleth feel--

Hmm…

Her chin tips up in thought. It makes her... _feel_ …

Edelgard interrupts.

“Is that so?” 

Byleth nods, serious, and watches the way red fabric shifts as Edelgard turns to listen to her--to watch her--with the same rapt attention she had as a student, and still keeps to date in the war council. 

“They say it’s chess, but that’s not the case.”

“They _say_ that because chess is the tactical routing of an opponent. It’s meant to _mimic_ a battlefield.” The Emperor practically quotes from the _tactician’s guide_ and Byleth watches the breeze skirt over the surface of the water and wonders if Sothis would have fondly chuckled, but the only sound she hears is the water and the idle, far-away chatting of a few soldiers.

How would Edelgard feel, knowing a Goddess was so fond of her?

Byleth shakes her head.

“How many battlefields have you been on, El?” 

“Countless.”

“How many battlefields resembled the neatly-drawn lines of a chessboard, where everyone took turns and you could predict your opponent’s attacks with statistics and _math_?” 

“...none.” Edelgard looks pained to admit, begrudging, sighing as she tucks her book at her hip. 

“Chess is just…” Byleth’s head tips, “...the memorization of strategies. You’re not creating anything new. When you’re facing someone in chess, you’re...just applying the most appropriate thing you’ve memorized that you can think of for that moment for the situation in front of you and hoping it works.” 

“Alright.” And Edelgard stands, then, setting her book upon the bench, armored boots clicking as she walks along the stone towards the pond with that same studious look, hands settling on hips. Maybe one of these days they’ll both be comfortable enough fishing and reading and relaxing to do it without wearing armor. “Then what is _fishing_?”

“Fun.” At Byleth’s amused look, Edelgard tutts and steps closer, obviously not having appreciated being _baited_ over to the pier. She likely also wouldn't approve of the pun a little too similar to Alois' (and Petra's, lately) so Byleth keeps it to herself. A little more serious, “Are you sure you want to know? You don’t enjoy fishing. But I'm always okay teaching you.”

“You are currently the most renowned tactician Fódlan has ever seen. It could be argued you are a key point in elevating the war campaign into a rousing victory. If I have a chance to learn _how_ that wonderful mind of yours ticks, I’d be remiss not to take it for the betterment of the Empire.”

“...you could have just said yes.” Brows knit, head barely tipping to the side--no longer teasing--and Byleth cuts off Edelgard’s undoubtedly annoyed reply. She doesn’t have to divinely intimate it’s coming to see it on parted lips, “Not everything needs such a complicated reason, El. If you’d like to learn, let yourself learn. You don’t have to explain your motivations just because people have questioned them in the past. And you don’t always have to do things to make you _better_ , it’s fine to just fish. Although," A thoughtful look, "You’ll probably learn something in the process, anyways.”

Maybe Byleth has spent too much time answering the notes in the confessional.

“You’ll teach me to the end, won’t you?” It’s fonder--softer. Edelgard purses lips before letting the criticism settle, nodding. “Then...yes, Byleth.” Byleth smiles and Edelgard’s shoulders visibly lose the last of their tension when she quietly smiles back. “I...suppose I _would_ like to learn. Especially since it’s something you take such an interest in.”

Edelgard slowly unhooks gauntlets about wrists, setting them to the side, white gloves underneath catching the sunlight like melted snow.

“Fishing,” Byleth nods before reeling in the line. “Is a _real_ battlefield. It’s long moments of waiting followed by sharp, tense moments of excitement. Everything is planning. You find fish like you scout your battlefield--” Once the line is reeled, she hands the pole to Edelgard, whose nose wrinkles only a _little_ at the feeling of her gloves getting wet. 

Unlike most nobles, after all, Edelgard doesn’t mind dirt and muck and mud--she had been covered in them for years. Battlefields weren’t glamorous.

(Neither was fishing).

And so Byleth feels her chest swell with... _something_ as the other woman totes up the rod, ready to learn, like she had picked up a lance in lessons. Not proficient with it, but _willing_. 

A challenge.

“So we scout our enemies--what do you see in front of you?” Byleth steps behind her and scans the horizon over her shoulder.

“A pond. I see a ripple in the corner--” A true general starts, “The wind is shifting the current _towards_ me, so I’ll likely have to adjust how I throw my line in order to hit my target.” Her chin tips backwards and looks to her professor, who nods, encouraging. “The light is hitting the right side of the pond, and will fade across it in an hour, creating warmth for the fish, and they’ll likely follow it. They’ll stay below the surface because they’ll want to avoid predators. Or my professor’s _infamous_ rod and net, which catches anything under its shadow.” 

“You approach things like a soldier.” There’s a knowing praise on her lips and Edelgard straightens just a little beneath it, “And a leader of troops. You’ve noted some important things, Edelgard, which are good to trap the fish in this moment...but we need to think of the bigger picture. What else do you see? What do you hear? What do you smell?” 

Light brows knit as an Emperor once more takes in the blue, glistening pit that’s become her battlefield. 

Byleth leans forward to gently wrap fingers around her wrist, guiding the shorter woman backwards so that she can mimic her eyes with her own, listening to the faint gasp of breath that catches on lips before Edelgard seems to focus, determined, now. 

A professor settles her chin on Edelgard’s shoulder, far more familiar in touching this student in particular, these days. 

Rare, but...familiar.

And the way Edelgard eases just a little into her reminds Byleth that sometimes the rarest of things are welcome. 

“What matters to people on a battlefield?” 

“The same as what matters to people founding cities: food, shelter, water, and safety.” Edelgard immediately replies. 

“So what matters to fish? Your goal is to trap the enemy and reel them in--what might stand in your way of that?” 

“I see…” Realization floods that calm voice, Edelgard’s head moving about as she takes in the pond in a seemingly new light. “The monastery. It’s...four o’clock, coming into five, and that path on the left will be tread by the church service let out. They’ll be noisy and their footfalls will probably disturb the pond. The squires like to come here to throw rocks on Wednesdays, and the washing happens in the corner. They’ll be pushed into the middle of the pond, even though the light will be on the West end of it. And I smell…” Edelgard’s nose wrinkles. “...fish soup? How is that relevant? Are they scared of their fate?” 

It’s... _nice_ to hear Edelgard joke.

“Rain.” Byleth offers knowingly. “You can taste the condensation on the air, if you can't smell it.”

“How could you smell that over the kitchens?” 

Byleth shrugs, stomach idly grumbling because she _does_ smell the kitchens. 

“Is this...how you look at everything?” Edelgard is looking over her shoulder, now, close enough that Byleth smells far more of her hair than the rain and it’s a welcome change. She could smell the clouds over the food, but Byleth isn’t sure anything but Edelgard could ever fill her lungs, in this moment. “Is this how you see battlefields?” 

“Yes.” Hands curve gently over the rod, raising fingers to paint a grid in the pond where Violet eyes can follow, “It’s _real_ chess. You’re good with strategy when you’re expecting it. You can plan in advance and are _great_ facing adversity on the battlefield as a soldier--you’re always quick to react--but a battlefield is never as clean as chess. We both know that.” 

She feels fingers flex beneath her own, gripping the rod not out of being corrected, but vigor.

“I see.” And Edelgard _has_ always been good with critique--with that infinite urge to _strive further_ \--and there’s that tightness in Byleth’s chest, again. Warm and soothing, pressing herself against the flat of Edelgard’s back. 

She hadn't thought holding someone could be so comfortable.

“You shouldn’t be...picking a strategy to go up against whatever opposing strategy you _think_ you're seeing on the battlefield, hoping the one you picked is better." 

“I... _should_ be thinking of how they respond, and naturally taking in the world and their needs. You’re saying I shouldn’t just assume they’ll react tactically--but...naturally and true to themselves?” 

“Exactly. Everyone has a primal urge--it’s true there’s...math and statistics, and we can always take two strategies and see which path people will be most _likely_ to take, because the truth is that _most_ people are just as skittish as these fish. If I toss a rock into the pond, they’ll flee to the other side, because we know they’re scared of it--it’s something they’ll avoid. But not everyone is as scared as a fish.”

“Many enemies are...noble. Are fighting because they believe in the opposition of your own wants and desires.” Edelgard quietly agrees and Byleth nods. 

“So if you _identify_ your enemy’s needs and desires--what they think is important, whether the rain will make them move, whether the light will keep them warm, whether the noise will scare them--you’ll know which way they’ll go, and you’ll know what they do. And then you go fishing.” 

“I see.” Edelgard repeats, quieter, now, watching the pond for a moment before she asks, “Is that why you--” A rare pause and it sounds like she might think over the question before redirecting, or maybe rewording. It’s interesting enough for Byleth to lean back and watch her, fully. “...spared Flayn?” A moment passes before she continues, “We were surrounded by soldiers with the city on fire and I _trusted_ you, I never hesitated to accept your choice in sparing her, but I didn’t understand, then, that it might have been…” She shakes her head, and this is one of those moments where she wonders if there’s a question behind the words. Edelgard is full of layers, she’s found, and while Byleth has learned so many of them, she feels there’s so many more to be found. A woman of secrets, all tucked away in a hidden box Byleth has yet to fully find. “Was it a tactical decision?”

A bare hand comes up to rest on Edelgard’s shoulder in thought, still pressed against her back as she thinks--lets the question settle before nodding. 

“Yes. And no. Our enemies aren’t the only fish.” Byleth offers, “Flayn...didn’t have to die. Neither did Seteth. The best battles are the ones where you minimize casualties on both sides,” Her head dips to the side, remembering the heat on her shoulders. Her back. Remembering the way she had barely cupped Edelgard’s palm in curling fingers after the fighting in a rickety war tent on the outskirts of the battle, the puckered flesh of hands beneath gauntlets singed through and burnt along the metal of Aymr in the flames. The healing waves from Byleth’s fingertips had turned them into slivers of scars beneath red grieves--two more to match thousands that litter ivory skin. 

She remembers the way Flayn had coughed, the smoke settled in both their lungs, fingers curled and bloodied into the tuft of a Pegasus’ quaking wings, matted with soot and blood. Both of them panting wisps of heat. Weak.

 _We’re family_ , she had said once, but looked at Byleth with nothing short of sadness, then. Not betrayal, just...sadness.

Perhaps that’s what family filled in people: hope, sadness, and loss in equal measure. That’s how Byleth remembers Jeralt. It's how she remembers Sitri.

It's how she remembers Rhea.

Byleth mulls over the words--the odd...ache that the memory fills in her chest--the worried gratitude that had settled on Edelgard’s features, after the fight. A look she’d seen several times, over the years, when Byleth had chosen _Edelgard_ and life over a church’s firm thumb.

The Emperor of Fódlan, cloaked in red and black and on her knees in the soot, didn’t want the world to die (despite what some apparently claimed) and the moment Byleth offered someone might be spared, Edelgard always took the chance with equal parts relief and trepidation.

Just because war had been the only way didn't mean death truly was.

This thought, it-- _feels--_

“They needed an escape route. They needed to know that our battle was righteous, not _wicked,_ I guess. To use...whatever words the Church probably used. If we took them, we took the battle, and we would demoralize the troops. But it isn’t always about killing. If we killed Flayn, Seteth would have been...inconsolable. He would have become a danger to fight, and he was already dangerous--we didn’t _need_ to fight him. Some fires are better to...put out quickly, than let them burn and spread. Some fires are _supposed_ to burn, but...not that one.” 

Her brows knit and she’s surprised when Edelgard turns Byleth’s chin towards her own, something unreadable in her eyes. 

And Edelgard waits, simply holding her for this brief moment, like she knows there’s more, because there is.

“ _And_ I didn’t want her to die.” Byleth says simply, only to her--only in this safe quiet of a courtyard--and the woman who she intends to spend _all_ days like this with, who nods as fingertips curl beneath Byleth's chin. 

“How did you know they wouldn’t retaliate when you let them go? That they wouldn’t go back to Rhea?” Edelgard quietly presses. 

“I didn’t, I guess...but I know my fish.” Byleth looks back towards the pond. 

“Which is why we won.” Edelgard surmises. “Our initial strategy was outmatched when we arrived. And your responding strategy on the battlefield to split up and focus our forces around the fire--sparing key combatants... _that’s_ what won.” And she sounds almost _praising_ when she says, a little in awe, “You didn’t just choose a strategy or response, you...went fishing.”

“A tactician’s game.” Byleth’s voice skirts along her ear and Edelgard eases backwards against her enough that she can wrap an arm fully around a slim waist, now.

This information seems to cement Edelgard's drive.

“What do we do next?”

“We take all of that into account and cast the line.” 

And so Byleth shows her the technical aspects of fishing--of how to throw and cast and reel in, despite the elements of noise and wind and heat. Shows her how to tactically assume where the fish might try to escape upon being caught on a line--how to pull it and unhook it without harming it and kill it the quickest way possible. She tells her about bait, and how to read shadows, and how to choose a fishing spot--

“So you just...stand here and _wait_ for it to bite?”

“Like waiting for a charge on a battlefield. See? The anticipation--” Byleth lightly tickles her stomach and Edelgard chuckles and bats away her hands and Edelgard listens to every word, until she stands on her own and reels in a smacking fish that flops against her knee with no guidance, a few hours later.

Ever the quick study. 

The warmth spreads through a chest still so unaccustomed to it and settles in her lungs and fills her so deeply that Byleth has to pull away to look at the happiness on Edelgard’s face. 

Proud. Edelgard looks proud.

This feeling is...startling.

“I’ve forgotten how marvelous you were at teaching, Professor. Unorthodox, as always, but still so phenomenally proficient.” Edelgard _hums_ , careful to unhook the fish exactly as shown, shaking away water and the scent from her fingertips before slipping back on gloves. And then turns her attention up to said professor. “You look yalms away.” It’s softer and Byleth slowly looks up from fingertips to familiar eyes, that warmth pressing against her chest...consuming. Distracting.

Her face contorts in confusion and she shakes her head.

Does she look far away?

“...I’m sorry--” 

“Are you alright?” It’s even gentler, barely heard over the wind and the soft sound of the rain starting to gently patter about their feet and the fish in its bucket full of water in deep plops, and the pond where the fish scatter from its cold intrusion. Edelgard steps closer and Byleth nods.

“I’m...fine.”

“What is it?” It’s an invitation and Byleth must visibly hesitate because Edelgard steps closer, still, careful--

“I…” A huff of breath through lips, feeling-- _feeling_ \-- “I just... _felt_ something, is all.”

“What do you mean?” Edelgard is rare with her affection on the grounds but fingertips raise up to gently brush ragged bangs from Byleth’s eyes. This is the closest she’s felt all month, even a moment ago in her arms, and an ache churns in Byleth’s stomach. It’s a testament to how much a student changed over the years, because she asks instead of assuming she knows the best recourse: “Are you in any pain? Do you want me to call for Manue--”

“No. No, it’s nothing like that. I felt--” Brows still knit and, words failing her, Byleth gently takes Edelgard’s hand and lowers it to her heart, where its weak thud aches (and **aches** ) up towards the warmth of familiarity. Presses a palm of white against the black-cloaked, hidden place that used to be so _still._ It stirs like coal simmering beneath ashes, vibrating fingertips and her chest and her _throat_. It beats so steadily that Byleth might think it would scare those fish away. “I _felt_ something. New.”

“Oh.” The realization settles deep in widening violet.

“Maybe not _new_ , just...different. It all feels…”

Different.

Edelgard’s fingers splay over heart and Byleth’s breath catches, looking away.

“Do you know what it was?” 

“No. It felt...like--” A tongue darts over lips before she tries-- “I’m still--” It feels so odd to say--to _admit_ \--out loud.

“You can tell me.” El promises, leaning closer so that it’s just them standing in the soft, gentle rain, neither of them minding. For the moment, at least, their voices barely heard over the sky’s gentle cry. Byleth hesitates. “My teacher…” El whispers in her ear, “They’re _our_ problems, remember? You’ve taught _me_ so much, the least I can do is help you untangle _this_.” 

“I’m…” Byleth eases tense muscles beneath Edelgard’s fingertips, wordlessly lifting up her cloak to shield them from the rain, “I’m still learning what all of them mean. It’s like...waking up and trying to remember a dream. I’ve...I think I’ve _felt_ these things before. I’ve just never felt them so...” Her head tilts to the side, “... _strongly_.” 

“And what do you feel now?” 

It’s started to rain a bit more, gentle, graceful drops. The kind that makes the grass smell like dew and hides the scent of enemies in a battlefield, even if it helps make their tracks clearer due to the mud their boots will sink into after it's settled, trapped.

The kind that makes Edelgard’s hair stick to her chin, if they’re out in it long enough, framing the curving edges of her smile on the unlikely occasion it’s only them en route to a mission or a skirmish or a battlefield.

Or fishing by a pond in Garreg Mach.

Byleth pulls up her cloak enough to block out the rain from Edelgard's eyes.

“I don’t know.”

“Alright.” Edelgard pulls enough away to see her in the shadows of the black cloak surrounding them, looking thoughtful and determined for a moment before she tries, “Then what...did it feel _like_? What were you thinking? What did you want, in the moment?” 

“I don’t know.” Byleth admits, trying to sort it through, calm and methodical, “...it was... _good_.” A little more certain, mulling it over before she repeats, firmer: “It was good.”

“Good.” El sounds relieved in a way likely only Byleth and Hubert would be able to hear of it in her voice. 

“Warm. I was watching you fish and I was thinking of how much you’ve _grown_ as a person, and into who I knew you could be, and how...” Her head tips upwards, thinking of the way Edelgard had looked at her own catch, realizing: “...proud of you I am.”

El blinks, rain tickling down cheeks to Byleth’s chin before she quietly...smiles. Beautiful. And the warmth is there but _different_ , again. Spreading. _Aching_. 

“You felt _proud_ of me?”

“I...yes. I _feel_ ,” Byleth settles on, a little more sure--a little more confident and sturdy--meeting Edelgard’s eyes with her second resolute nod, “ _Proud_ of you.” 

Byleth has read about pride. It’s the emotion that precedes arrogance in novels--the emotion that can heat someone’s palms to war; It’s the emotion that swells up in a lover’s chest when they watch the eye of their heart succeed, or a mother when their child writes a song and defies them to sing it to a nation; it’s many people’s downfall. Heroes. Villains. _People._

It’s Byleth’s success, as a teacher. And...the woman who feels for Edelgard as she does.

“Byleth…” El softens and beneath the thin weight of Byleth’s coat, which must seem like safety enough from prying eyes and the scattered fish, she leans up to kiss her cheek, near the edge of lips, and the breath rattles in an Emperor’s lungs before it pushes out between them, steady and warm. Her voice rumbles like quiet thunder in the distance, but Byleth's never seemed safer beneath it, “Who I am, today, is because of you, I think you have _reason_ to be proud.” 

“You’re giving me _too much_ credit.” Byleth murmurs, dismissing, and Edelgard kisses her again, near the other edge of barely curved lips, the sound of a fish flopping in the bucket next to them missed beneath the rain.

“My love,” Edelgard doesn’t laugh, but she does _smile_ in her wry amusement, and that warmth burns and burns and burns in Byleth’s cool chest, “You don’t give yourself enough.” 

Pride

Byleth knows this word, but didn’t understand its meaning. 

Not until Edelgard taught her.

“Next time you feel something new, you should tell me,” El offers, “We can sort it through, together. However confusing it might be, certainly it’s no rival for our combined wits.” Byleth thinks on it for a long moment before she nods and looks down towards Edelgard's first catch. “For now...why don't we cook tonight's dinner?" 

The cloak lowers as Byleth pauses, an almost shy smile tucking up the edges of lips before it smooths into something calm, "Sure. We'll cook it together." 

There's many things Edelgard rouses pride in her Professors' chest. Her passion and compassion--her intellect and deduction--her triumphs and the way she's learned humbled, and with dedication, from her failures--her fishing and, perhaps, most of all...her smile. 

Edelgard seems determined to add _her cooking_ to that list and while Byleth has a staunch feeling that today will not be that day, she finds herself...excited(? Hopeful? Pleased?) at all the days they can spend finding out.

(Even if she always makes sure the Head Cook sets aside a separate meal for them, just in case).

Byleth leans over to pick up a small little wooden box off the bench and later that evening, slides Edelgard's first hook inside.

\----

In truth to their vows to each other in the Goddess Tower, they become a unified front. Although Byleth is unsurprised by the fact that this means not much _changes_ in their lives (outside of winning a war) because they were a unified front, before.

In strategy, battle, and tactics--in facing their enemies and their friends--but maybe... _some_ things are different.

Like the nearly shy looks Edelgard sends Byleth’s way when no one is looking--or their moments, after the long days have set to night and the war counsel empties to two, that they sit and discuss what future might await them on the horizon, just out of reach but growing closer by the day. 

_‘I’ve always wanted to go to Albinea’_ , _El’s wistful hum is lost in the quiet of the room, echoing around them as she leans up against the table they once had lessons on. Byleth’s arms cross as she leans next to her, their hips resting comfortably side-by-side as they have for the past two and a half years._

 _Byleth wouldn’t be surprised if El insisted the past_ **_eight_ ** _years._

 _Time has passed, since the war, but she’s learned it doesn’t stop. Not anymore. Then again, it never_ **_stopped_ ** _for Byleth--it only ever folded backwards in on itself like a rumpled shirt or sifted through her fingertips like sand she’d intended to throw into the eyes of an attacker, but lost to the ground, instead._

_‘Me too.’ Byleth’s hand idly scratches nails along her chest and she lets out a small breath when she feels Edelgard’s fingers barely skim along the inside of her wrist, both of them hovering over her heart. ‘Maybe we can go there, when this is all over with.’_

_‘Let’s.’ And El smiles and that feeling..._ **_blooms_ ** _and Byleth’s hand stills along her heart and Edelgard stills along with it. A curious look must have settled on Byleth’s face, because the next thing she knows--_

_‘...perhaps you’re feeling...hopeful.’ Edelgard boldly offers, shifting a little closer and Byleth’s eyes flick down to her lips._

_‘Is_ **_that_ ** _what I feel?’_

_‘That’s up to you to say.’_

_‘Hopeful.’ She tastes before the summoning bell rings above them and they pull away._

_Edelgard’s fingers linger in her own before they untwine, walking down the hall hip-by-hip towards the tower, their knuckles brushing with each step._

_The moments are still rare, but they seek them out, now, the light from the sky catching along Edelgard’s ring before a glove is slid over fingertips._

_Hope._

_(Maybe not all futures must wait until after the shadows are scattered by light)._

And hip-by-hip is how they tackle a professor’s removed, textbook examination of her own heart with Edelgard’s life experience (what she _has_ of it), slowly sorting out the feelings that have begun to stir in Byleth’s chest. 

They’ve both been removed from emotions for so long, maybe it’s nice for Edelgard to find them, too.

 **_What is this feeling_** **?** Byleth learns to murmur in the air by Edelgard’s ear, and they’ll arrive at a conclusion, together. 

**_‘Contentment’_** in the early morning as Byleth sets tea down on the soft, rustling white cloth in the gardens, watching the steam curve around Edelgard’s smile like hair caught around her cheek in the rain, their wrists creeping towards each other beneath the chipped porcelain that’s survived far more than a war-- **something soft and settling like fresh linens on a bed Byleth is still getting used to sleeping on;**

 ** _‘Disappointment’_** in the moments their fingers touch and are pulled away by duty, the sound of their quiet laughter lingering throughout the stone halls similar to how the cathedral used to catch Dorothea’s voice as it rang throughout-- **aching and quiet as Byleth watches Edelgard’s smile fade into something serious and resolute;**

**‘** **_Amusement_ ** **’** Edelgard wryly comments as Lindhardt successfully spars Caspar by continuously ruffling his hair with a sleepy grin and a yawning, batting hand-- **fluttering like a bird’s wings against her ribcage, bouncing about bars waiting to break free;**

 **‘** **_Sadness_ **?’ She asks Edelgard in a guess when the Emperor finds her in the courtyard overlooking a great chasm, her father’s and mother’s gravestones stalwart bastions against its empty void, as if they’re holding Garreg Mach’s penetrable walls of stone and lost faith from falling into the endless dark gravel below-- **muted and constant, a dull ache**. It lessens, somehow, when Edelgard’s rare open touch skirts along her hip and rests along her stomach, guiding Byleth backwards against her chest. 

Soon, Byleth has experience to back the names of emotions she’s read about and dully felt and Edelgard, ever one to rise to a challenge, has stepped behind her professor without a second thought, trying to answer the questions of a quiz before her. 

“ **Joy**?” Edelgard tries as Byleth’s fingertips run along the edge of a flower, blue hair spilling over shoulders and head tilted to the side in thought as she calmly regards El’s determination. 

Thinks it through. _**No**. _It doesn’t sound right.

“I don’t think so.” She shakes her head, fingers curving beneath the edge of a flower, not wishing to disturb the small bird fluttering around the surface, lips barely pursing in thought.

She’s been in the Greenhouse for an hour, or so, watching this small little blue bird bat from leaf to leaf of a plant she’s been growing, fingers scratching thoughtlessly at her heart.

Byleth hadn’t asked what the emotion was, but Edelgard took it upon herself to find out, regardless.

“Contentment.” Edelgard tries again, brows furrowed in deep thought, herself, the leader of a ruthless strike force and a now-impervious Empire. It’s a tactical strategy--Edelgard had initially tried to talk it through with Byleth to see what she was feeling, what it reminded her of--

 _‘It’s a bird. I just see a_ **_bird_ ** _, Edelgard.’_

_‘That’s not exactly helpful, Professor.’_

\--before talking through some of the more base aspects of what was stirring in Byleth’s chest.

‘ _Well...is it positive?’_

_‘It’s...good, I think.’_

When nothing else followed, Edelgard had sighed.

And then did what any leader might do: try to find a solution regardless of adequate facts, because it simply had to be done.

 _Peaceful?_ **No.** _Nostalgic?_ **No.** _Analytical?_ **No.** _Joy?_ **No** _\--_

And finally, _contentment_ , which like the ones before it, is met with a shake of the head. 

Edelgard frowns, the crease of it barely indenting between brows as she lays a hand against Byleth’s back, easing forward to look at the bird, herself.

At a loss and not admitting it, probably. Now _that_ makes Byleth feel _amused_. That fluttery little bird in her chest, far warmer than it had been watching Caspar and Linhardt. 

Most things are far warmer when she’s with Edelgard.

A cat by the doorway meows with what might be agreement and fingertips thoughtlessly curl around the stone of the planter’s box.

El hesitates before almost guiltily suggesting: “...hungry?” 

“Hunger isn’t an emotion.” Byleth pauses, chin tipping up to look for Edelgard’s counsel, “It’s a need, isn’t it?” 

“Hmm, I suppose it is. And I might be disturbed if you wanted to eat a swallow you found in the garden.” 

“Mercenaries don’t have many choices, so I probably could. But if I _had_ to eat anything here, I’d rather have that squirrel up the tree.” Byleth’s lips barely tip upwards and the leader of Fódlan looks up towards the tree as if taking in the squirrel for the first time with a barely wrinkling nose.

“And I’m _still_ disturbed by your sense of _humor_ , my teacher.” But Edelgard smiles all the same, a hint of her competitiveness ebbing in light of the softness of the air in the garden as Byleth turns from the bird to brush a strand of hair from violet eyes--it had been tickling Byleth’s shoulder, given their close quarters, and was a little _annoying,_ but she doesn’t want it blocking Edelgard’s vision, either--fallen from a curving braid, tucking it behind that attentive ear. 

“Maybe some emotions don’t have names.” Byleth’s head tips to the side, palm warmed by the soft blush along Edelgard’s cheek from the gentle touch of fingertips as she leans into a cupping hand like it is both thoughtless and a very conscious choice, all in one. 

Warmth spreads from a clenching stomach to beating chest to curling fingertips, resting against El, who gently circles Byleth entirely in her arms, a little bolder every day.

_Warmth._

Is _this_ contentment? Maybe it is. 

“Well...do you feel differently, now? Or is it still the same?”

Byleth’s head tips to the side, thinking it through before she leans close enough to taste El’s breath, wanting to be _closer_ , somehow, which makes no sense since arms are wrapped around her and there’s no real way to get closer, is there? Or maybe there is.

Oh, she thinks there _is._

Bergamot. Edelgard’s lips smell like the tea Byleth had brewed for her in the early morning, fingers curling around the ivory of a cup as a humming Emperor inhaled it through nostrils before taking a long, slow sip. The same tea likely sipped even when it grew cold throughout the day for a reason Byleth’s not certain of, and still doesn't feel the need to ask, because there's a certainty to the knowledge. This _fact_. That Edelgard is more than capable of brewing her own tea, but always seems to favor Byleth’s pot long into the afternoon, even after it grows cold.

Bergamot. 

It’s not the first time Byleth’s had the urge to kiss Edelgard and it probably won’t be the last. Even though they’ve tackled everything together, they haven’t had much _time_ like this, alone. Fleeting moments for _months--_

“I think I feel…” Byleth smiles--a little wider, however small it might be in comparison--gently guiding Edelgard closer as that blush spreads. “...distracted.” 

And that quiet laugh _tastes_ as nice as it sounds and it dances up into the air like the flutter of the bird's wings below them and it fills all of Byleth’s lungs with it until that _content_ breath spreads through her and between them. 

Edelgard's laugh is as beautiful as her smile.

Bergamot, she decides, is a good scent.

“Oh, are you, Professor? What by?” A light tease despite that flattering blush, gloved fingertips smoothing out the rumpled collar of a dark cloak; work that’s ruined the moment Byleth’s other hand raises up to gently settle in the small of El’s back, pressing her up closer, and those gloves fist in fabric until suddenly white is engulfed by the shadows spread over shoulders. 

“What...do _you_ feel right now, El?” It's a murmur--curious and soft, letting out the smallest flutter of a breath when one of those tangling hands falls down to her chest and rests a palm against the skipping beat of a heart. It’s...soothing, now, how Edelgard holds her. It's been so seamless, how hesitation has slowly morphed into...familiarity. How Byleth's body seems to expect it as much as her _mind_ might, heart pattering like soft rain and shoulders easing like knots of a ship that have been unmoored into calm waters.

“Maybe...some emotions _don’t_ have names,” It’s a breathless recall, leaning just a little further up into Byleth until their noses brush and the words sink onto parting lips like a welcome drink of water. “But...if this one did, I suppose it would be--”

“Lady Edelgard.” 

Both of them tense, twisting around to see Hubert’s impassive face and devilishly twinkling eyes, voice monotone as Edelgard huffs underneath her voice--

“ _Annoyance_ .” To Byleth’s quiet chuckle, before she says much louder, “ _Yes_ , Hubert?”

Surprisingly, Edelgard doesn’t pull away, although she does give Byleth a far more apologetic smile as those white gloves once more smooth out the wrinkles they've caused in fabric before facing Hubert and leaning into the palm settled in the curve of her back for just a moment more--just a _moment_ more--before Byleth’s hand dutifully falls, facing the familiar stoic vassal, as well. 

“There’s word on the Slither’s movements on the outskirts of Hyrm.” 

Both of them straighten their spines, then, tender could-have-beens once again tabled for another day. Another tomorrow, brighter than the day before. 

They both have higher priorities.

“They’re heading towards Morfis?” Edelgard surmises and at Hubert’s nod, the Emperor sighs up towards her tactical counsel, something far more serious taking root in features. “It appears you were right, Professor.”

Neither of them take pleasure in this fact.

Those Who Slither in the Dark were not just slithering in Fódlan. 

“But unfortunately there’s been even more...unnerving developments than just Morfis.”

The war room is full within the hour after Edelgard and Byleth have both been briefed, their heads bent and hushed whispers bouncing along the high stone walls.

The map sits stalwart upon the table, crisp and loose around the pins keeping it stapled to the large desk centered in the room, holes widened from half a decade plus of wandering hands shifting it about as eyes took in a war front.

In the center of the map still sits proud Garreg Mach, whose conversion these past six months following the Won War from a Monastery to a genuine officer's school has not changed its current occupancy of forces. It's true that many hearts' hatred eased with each and every day of Emperor Edelgard von Hresvelg's steady, firm rule--more compassionate than they had been lead to believe through the mayhem and tragedy that consumed houses for neigh a near decade--but not everyone was pleased.

While The Great Beast (as she's come to be called within the troops, propaganda and pamphlets continuous and circulated, still) Rhea was felled and Dimitri, Deluded King (a term Byleth frowns at in its use every time), put to rest, there is still upset in much of Fódlan. Uprisings and spattered, enraged, frightened villages fighting back against who they view as an evil conquering force, taking away their land and religion, combined with the nobles who clutched desperately to their power and riches and crests, insistent that equality threatened their livelihoods.

_“Perhaps if your excess of... **livelihood** cannot exist with **equality** \--if you believe you require the lesser futures of the men and women you swore to protect and serve as their noble leader to maintain it--then you do not understand the worth of human life, at all, and are not fit to hold your position over them, von Gideon.” _

Edelgard had been cemented in history as a fierce leader, but her rousing speech at a large estate set ablaze by righteousness in the North East of what was beneath the Lions Snare, where a noble had tried to fight the Black Eagles by using his peasants for fodder, would likely go down as a key quote to attest to it. There wasn't a scribe in sight as Emperor Hresvelg held a glowing axe to the last noble nephew of Gideon's neck underneath his mansion's towering stone pillars, the disgraced man scrambling backwards in the muck he'd fallen into from the gallop of his dismayed horse, cowering on his back with sniveling pleas as his flee from battle was thwarted...but the story has been told time and time again by every soldier and in every tavern Byleth's been to since. 

All with such a great dramatic flair and liberty to storytelling that she wouldn't be surprised if Alois wasn't the first one to tell it.

Edelgard's amused face as they sat on a carriage heading back towards Garreg Mach a month later after quelling another uprising was well worth the bumpy ride and sitting next to a skew-eyed pegasus. 

_'--that's not how it happened at all! Edelgard beheaded him on the spot after he spat on an orphan boy that was working for him!'_

_'Oh, is that so? I had heard him jailed 'n Enbarr with the rest of the noble filth, waitin' judgment.'_

_'Oh, yeah--yeah--had a friend there, took his head clean off! He's not jailed, he's a yalm under!'_

_'You don't have friends, Jaspard.'_

_Normally, they ride proudly, but given the Slithers’ spies having eyes in_ **_every_ ** _hill, it would be better not to be caught unawares by a trap._ _It was wiser to sneak into a caravan than to take the entire group across the border when Ferdinand would already need to head Northwest and Petra and Dorothea South. At least, that’s what Byleth suggested off-hand to Hubert’s_ **_sighing_ ** _assent, all of them breaking off to go separate directions in common clothes._

 _Which is why Hubert sets across from them looking_ **_unnervingly_ ** _threatening towards a Pegasus that’s just licked his jaw in the back of a rickety, open-top caravan for the next three days. Byleth and Edelgard have settled next to each other far closer than they might have been were anyone else there._

_This, for some reason, does not seem to improve Hubert's always dour mood._

_‘I’ve never had roast Pegasus before. I wonder, is it a delicacy on the outskirts of the mountains?’ Hubert's smile is something reminiscent of the tales told of Byleth, herself, in the taverns:_ **_devilish_ ** _._

_Definitely not improvement. If this is how Hubert’s doing, Byleth can only imagine Ferdinand’s fear at riding in the back of a straw-filled cart._

_Maybe he’ll think it’s an adventure. Caspar certainly looked excited._

_'It seems this new Emperor wants the best for_ **_all_ ** _people in Fódlan.' Edelgard pipes up underneath a particularly rough bump, a hint of red that might be indignation or amusement creeping up her neck and Byleth is just glad the farmers didn’t hear Hubert’s dry musing._

_The men look back from their conversation and tilt their heads, appraising, and ultimately nod._

_'Y'know, lady...you might be right.'_

_Byleth's sword easily tips underneath her nails to dig out the dirt, casually shrugging with a serious nod, stilling it underneath the next bump. 'She usually is.'_

_The red was certainly not ire, now, spreading further upwards and that same, amused smile twisting up Edelgard’s lips as lips brush along the dirt-scuffed cheek resting upon a sword's hilt, paying little mind to the weapon...or to Hubert’s heavy_ **_sigh_ ** _across from them, it seems._

 _Byleth offers a smile, shifting to hold Edelgard beneath the next jostling bump so that she might steady herself against it. Out of the corner of an eye she catches t_ _he Pegasus nosing beneath Hubert's chin as if trying to lift his scowl._

_It's not a surprise it doesn't work._

_'Oh, Hubert, we're just **traveling** companions. Wouldn't you say, Jaspard?' Edelgard's voice is practically sing-song over her shoulder and Jaspard, once more paying them notice instead of squabbling with his own companion about just how many nobles Emperor Edelgard von Hresvelg has beheaded, furrows brows thicker than the stray dog that wanders Garreg Mach's coat. _

_'Uh...yeah, sure?'_

_The pegasus licks Hubert's cheek and Byleth's head tips to the side, calmly noting:_

_'I think it likes you.' A thoughtful hum, 'I think you would make a good Pegasus Knight, Hubert.'_

_Hubert's scowl...thins. And maybe it's a trick of the eye--maybe the trees above them filter out the sunlight until it blinks--but she swears, just for a moment, she might see the hint of a smile._

_Or, at the very least, Hubert no longer threatens to cook the pegasus for the remainder of the ride to town._

And thus thanks to word of mouth, the uprisings caused by nobles have been easily dealt with, and few nobles could find villagers to bolster their claims of outrage, these days.

Edelgard was fighting _for_ them, not against them, and they were starting to understand that. 

The uprisings regarding religion were...trickier, and Edelgard’s interference usually led to _worse_ outcomes than if she hadn’t shown, at all, something she’d been reluctant to admit, but nodded after their last quelling of an insurrection led to every member of a church being toted away in chains.

Even now, Byleth is aware that had it been Rhea, the insurrectionists in the church likely would have been dead, instead of sitting in a jail, but the indignation of being locked up for ‘believing’ was gaining far too much traction to not be taken a serious threat.

_‘It’s my job to lead--we’ve spilled enough blood, perhaps someone else might have a solution.’_

_‘I agree.’ Mercedes looks hesitant in the corner, but hardly meek. They **all** agree there’s been too much blood spilled. But Mercedes ultimately looks away before Byleth steps forward, eyes set on a girl she knows **well**. _

_‘...I think there’s a solution.’_

_All eyes expectantly look up save for Mercedes, who nervously watches Edelgard._

At Byleth's quiet insistence, these uprisings have been dealt with with the head of the New Church, Mercedes von Martritz, who has ended _many_ of them before they started, establishing several Churches underneath Edelgard's _cooperation_ , not banner. An organization subsisting _within_ the Empire--alongside, not _over_.

So far, the most radical uprisings where Mercedes has not been successful in quieting them, Jeritza has settled them shortly after. 

They’re thankfully far less prominent. 

_'I might hate this false Goddess and 'religion', but people still have a_ **_right_ ** _to it, Byleth. Why would they think I would--everything I have done has been to protect them!' A rare frustration is as clear as a scowl upon lips, highlighted by the flickering candles that fortify the long spindles burning within a restored Cathedral. It paints Edelgard’s features in a soft, passionate glow, but also showcases the dark circles beneath sunken eyes. ‘They’re only prolonging their own suffering.’_

_'Maybe,' A shrug, gently stepping up behind tight shoulders to gently curl fingers around them. 'People are...protective over things that matter to them.'_

_‘That_ **_is_ ** _true, isn’t it?’ Edelgard murmurs, shoulders tensing before they relax beneath scarred palms. ‘I suppose I am protective, as well. I **am** protective of everyone here--I’m protective of _ **_all_ ** _of them. No one else has to die, if they would just--’_

_Byleth’s fingers skim along a cheek that clenches and eases just as shoulders had--dip down a neck that swallows and bobs--before wrapping around Edelgard's waist, guiding those sharp muscles and edges the rest of the way against Byleth's chest. A welcome embrace._

_Edelgard sags against her like a sack of flour that’s been cut open, all the air in her lungs puffing upwards into the sky._

_Because here, it seems, just like her muscles, she can hold on only so tightly before letting go. It's a feeling Byleth...can **understand** , now._

_‘All you can do is...lead people, El. You can’t make their choices for them.’_

_Fingers hesitate for only a breath before they smooth along Byleth’s wrists along hips, pulling the taller of them closer so that arms wrap fully around her, twisting to raise her own arms around a craning neck before El's own head falls to rest there._

_El fits so nicely here, like the proudest token nestled safely inside a box._

_‘Then I’m glad I have you by my side. What are you protective over, I wonder--’_

_Edelgard’s chin tips backwards and Byleth holds her until a messenger comes shortly after with an updated report on Ferdinand’s slim hold in the Northwest._

_It hasn’t gotten better, the two months since._

The war room is full of a tense silence after the news is shared, all eyes in the room focused upon the map of Garreg Mach, and the pins of their strongholds littering its aged surface. To the southwest, a few weeks’ journey away, lay a new pin.

A plague has started to take root in Hyrm, on the outskirts of Ordelia, much to Lysithea’s worry, similar to what had overtaken Remire but far worse. The stronghold borders what used to be the Leicester Alliance and the Empire’s hills--a key position against the annoyed nobles rebelling in the East looking to ride towards Enbarr.

The plagues’ spread is showcased by black pins trending a noted path upwards, adorned by the clean parchment quill of Ingrid’s handwriting.

Names.

“It’s spreading to the _nobles_ with crests who sided with the Empire.” Ingrid concludes, face pulled downward as if a string had tied to her chin. 

Sided with the Empire’s successful _insurrection_ , as many people in Leicester would still claim. 

“How could a plague attack someone with crests?” Caspar frowns, eyes flicking up towards the few empty chairs of their usual Black Eagle Squadron. Two notable absences with crests missing: Ferdinand, who has been dispatched to the Northwest of what used to be House Kleiman, whose strategic tactical position near the coast of the continent will be _invaluable_ if Byleth’s hypothesis of the Slithers’ outreach stretching to their neighboring continents held true. Leonie rides with him, crestless. And the other was Petra, who had returned to Brigid to mend relations between the Empire and her country while assuming rule. 

Dorothea, of course, was with her, but bore no crest, as well, and Byleth’s chin tips downward in thought, fingers tucking beneath a working jaw. 

“Technically a plague _infects_ , it doesn’t attack. But I suppose those who bear crests _do_ have unique blood.” Hanneman offers thoughtfully, carefully cleaning a monocle with a handkerchief he tucks back inside his pocket. “It is likely attacking the unique signature of the blood that makes crests so extraordinary.” 

“And if it’s attacking the _blood_ , the options we currently have to treat it are, oh... _nonexistent_ .” Manuela _pouts_ in the corner, clearly disturbed, knuckles resting beneath her own chin as she takes in the map. 

“Hmm...yes,” Linhardt perks upwards, either clearly deep in thought...or clearly deep in sleep, “Fascinating, really. It would have taken a good bit of experimentation on live blood samples of someone bearing a crest to create a strand of plague that could infect crest-bearers.” 

Byleth’s eyes skim over Lysithea’s pale features before settling to her left on Edelgard’s stoic ones. 

“Indeed.” Edelgard agrees, darker than any of them know. “Which can serve as a reminder of how dangerous they are--and always will be--until they’re wiped from existence. They’ve ruled by fear and oppression for so long that they don’t seem to know how to fight a war with any other tool. I fear this was likely their contingency plan from the start.” The discontent waters of violet flick up towards Byleth before once more settling on the board.

“So...if they’re going to worst case scenarios--” Sylvain rubs the back of his neck, scowling. 

“It means we’ve got ‘em on the ropes!” Caspar pumps his fist and Linhardt sighs at the mere insinuation of probably how much effort it all sounds like but it’s Ingrid who steps closer. 

“I think we should be cautious.” Ingrid sports furrowed brows and tense lines about lips but she’s grown so much since Byleth first met her.

They all have, judging by Bernadetta in the corner, quiet but present. 

“Agreed.” Hubert nods, “They’re cunning beasts who have not yet revealed themselves to Fódlan for a reason. I would advise against underestimating them.” 

“I concur, as well.” The Emperor herself agrees before leaning up from the board. “I believe you all know your roles. This changes nothing from our current effort to solidify our defenses in key strongholds. Cementing our hold over the continent and against opposing forces by sea is a high priority not for just putting out lingering opposition from the war, but from _defending_ all of Fódlan. We need to keep an eye on our future as well as our present, my friends. The _**True**_ Waris still upon us. Be that as it may, Hubert, I’ll need you to notify Petra and Ferdinand of this immediately. We do not need to cause panic, but they need to be aware of the situation at hand in case it escalates. I do not want to send anyone to Hyrm until we’re positive the plague cannot be contracted by someone without a crest.”

“As you wish, your Majesty,” Hubert, with his ever-deep bow, departs shortly after. 

“Manuela, Hanneman, Linhardt--”

“Fine, fine,” Linhardt _yawns_ , “I suppose looking into this will at least be _interesting_ . Let’s go ahead and _solve_ it so that I can go back to bed.” 

“Not everything has to be about a _bed_ with you two,” Hanneman huffs and Manuela scowls, hands settling on hips. Indignant.

“ _Excuse_ me--”

“Oh, that’s not what I meant and you _know_ it, Manuela. I simply meant you were late to this meeting because you were--”

“Alllllright. Let’s stop shoving our feet in our mouth squabbling and go kick some butt!” Caspar, surprisingly, is the one to shoo them out, much to everyone else’s relief.

The meeting that lasts after is another few hours before the light that had graced the garden has fallen and started to rise, once more, faraway on the horizon but close enough somebody might be able to touch the ephemeral warmth of it if they became one with the shadows on the edge of its reach. 

Soon enough, it’s just Edelgard and Byleth left in the thick of those shadows, candelight flickering above the edge of a map that’s slowly been stained red by blood and determination and time. White gloves had been replaced by a lightly-armored counterpart given the generals and commanders sifting in and out of the room and Byleth walks behind her, now, watching the way the light touches the dips of them and disappears in the red bend of knuckles above the map before calmly shifting. 

Knowing fingers slowly undo the left gauntlet, its ply metal creaking loud enough to cover Edelgard’s surprised gasp for any ear but her Tactician's, who’s close enough to feel it warm the air. Fingers run over the scarred ridges of fingertips--and knuckles--and a wrist--before she does the same with the right, fingertips tracing a map she wishes she were far more familiar with than the one of Fódlan and the Empire below them. 

Edelgard’s nose dips down, head hanging as shoulders barely shake and with a rattling, heavy breath. She leans back into Byleth’s arms, sagging just enough for those undressing hands to skim up fingertips to hips to arms to the other woman’s heart, nose brushing along the high rise of an Emperor's cheek. 

She can feel an Emperor sift like that sand of time into a woman left behind in the steady beats of her heart, strong and certain below Byleth's palm. Rhythmic. Soothing. Like a war drum. Like the bob of a fishing line against water. Like the sound of footsteps walking alongside her in the hall.

Edelgard unwinds a little faster against her, these days.

And Byleth quietly kisses the ring on Edelgard’s finger and wishes it was Edelgard, herself.

“I realized what it was, looking at the bird.” Byleth quietly offers in her ear, knowing Edelgard has never been content with mysteries and secrets unless they’re woven by her own hand. “During the counsel.”

“And what was that?” Barely a murmur, the tension still pulling that smooth voice as taut as the string on Bernadetta’s bow, thin and _sharp_ and deadly. But shoulders ease a little more as one of Byleth’s arms wrap around her stomach, gently twisting in a slow dance to press Edelgard’s hips against the table and hold her up within the certain strength of her own arms. 

Byleth isn’t Hubert--she has no intention of taking Edelgard’s burdens solely upon her own shoulders so that she won’t feel them. Assuming her future wife is not capable of bearing the weight of her own life seems... _undermining_ , somehow, after all Edelgard has accomplished and faced. No, Byleth is well aware of the Emperor’s strength.

Which is why she lets them stand together, instead, hand on a heart raising up to cup a cheek, instead. 

“Protective.” Byleth offers, thoughtful and quiet. “I had seen a cat out in the garden--I’ve been feeding it, so it followed me. I’d forgotten about it, because I stayed with the bird for...an hour, before you came, and it didn’t feel like it mattered. But it did.” 

It’s funny, that way. The strangest things cause emotions.

“Oh,” Edelgard’s features soften and it’s now that she seems to hesitate before she gently tucks her head in the crook of Byleth’s cheek, resting on her shoulder fully, once more. “You’ve always been far more compassionate than anyone knows. You have a habit of protecting little birds, don’t you? Animals--children-- _students_ \--”

“I know the bird can fly on its own, and it’ll see the cat coming.” Byleth wraps her arms a little tighter around Edelgard, then, whose hands smooth up the front of her shoulders, but this time they sneak boldly underneath the black of a cloak, flattening over biceps until the fabric puddles around scarred wrists. “But I couldn’t help but…” Brows knit as she tastes the word that follows, “... **worry** . I guess even though I had fed the cat, and I _like_ the cat, and the cat is just...hunting. I understand the cat’s motivations--” Byleth closes eyes and feels Edelgard settle in her arms and--

And it’s...warm.

It spreads through her and settles and eases the tension she hadn’t known existed in her spine. 

“You’ll fight for the bird, even against the cat. That’s...not the first time you’ve felt that way, is it? It’s a little bit of a heavy-handed metaphor, my love.” Edelgard murmurs, pulling away enough to look at her. 

Byleth's read about protection: it's the desire to safe-keep something from harm; it's the emotion that wraps around shoulders like a hug, fierce. Loyal. It's a knight, like Jeralt used to be, if a person could be an emotion.

What emotion would Edelgard be?

“I know you can fight your own battles.” Byleth nods, determination settling in, “But I’d rather fight them with you.” 

“As would I, Byleth.” El’s voice is quiet and her eyelashes flutter against Byleth’s palm, _leaning...closer._

Until her scent once more fills Byleth's lungs and her warmth spreads through fingertips and palms and a clenching stomach and suddenly all she can feel is _Edelgard._

“What’s...this emotion?” A breath, leaning down to rest their foreheads together, brows knitting as Edelgard’s fingers hesitantly raise to brush over her cheek--her neck--push up through her hair, as if she’s careful of it. 

It’s the first time someone’s ever been careful of touching Byleth, outside of Rhea. 

(Byleth has a feeling Edelgard wouldn’t appreciate the comparison). 

“Hmm…” A thoughtful note sounds in the back of her throat as Edelgard leans closer in the earliest hours of the rising sun, light starting to creep up their bare hands and scarred necks and El’s soft, loving smile. “Anticipation,” Teeth tuck lips, “I would think.”

“Anticipation.” Byleth tastes with a smile and feels the thud of Edelgard’s heart in her throat and the shifting air between them and the feeling of fingertips growing a little bolder in their curl about her own craning neck, before leaning down and kissing her.

_Love--_

El’s gasp parts locked gates against lips and Byleth’s heart and the beating bird within as her fingers tangle in her hair and mutter _‘finally’_ against her before they inelegantly clatter against the table and knock half of the scrolls off the top of it, the map tearing a little at one of the pins, both of them giggling and chuckling and--

_Embarrassed and Happy and Giddy and Light--_

\--as they clean up the mess before Edelgard’s teeth tuck her lips and she blushes as she brings Byleth closer, once more. This time guiding her far away from the long table into the corner, sheltered from the kalleidoscope light of the stained glass windows in this shell of a building full of _used to be’s_ and slowly heralding _will becomes_. 

Neither one of them have had much practice at this, but love is something they can learn together, as well.

“Let’s try again.” 

**_\--Love--_ **

Byleth hums as she kisses El again and again and again underneath the warmth of the sun until both of them part with flushed cheeks and knowing smiles and fingers that link until they’re forced to go their separate ways, a little more _disheveled_ than they had been an hour before. 

**_Love_** through tense weeks and months and half a year of a slowly spreading plague and continued fights. _Love_ through stolen moments and kissed rings and emotions offered up into the air and caught by Edelgard’s lips.

“ **_Love_ ** ”--Edelgard vocalizes and offers, herself, as they lay in the grass by the gardens months and months later, tucked away in a corner where no one would think to look save for _Hubert (_ because anyone who _would_ look isn’t nearly as bold). Her finger gently, fondly tracing down the line of Byleth’s cheek like a painting, eyes bright and bashful as she leans above her.

“Is that what you feel?” Byleth asks, leaning into that fond finger and wrapping arms around her waist. It’s the first time Edelgard’s offered an emotion of her own instead of being asked--or implying it with an answer of Byleth’s. 

They’re parting ways in a few hours--Edelgard to Enbarr and Byleth to the outskirts of Kleiman to help Ferdinand secure the territory after a surprising uprising in the Southeast of the fortress, near the coast. 

A little _too_ close to the coast, and a little _too_ close to the spread of the plague that they’ve been monitoring since word of it rose. It’s convenient in the worst of ways that they’ve both come to expect, and it’s the wisest decision to send a tactician over the Emperor, however Edelgard desires to be on the front lines.

It was smart to send _Byleth_ , they all agreed.

It’s funny, how time can move so _quickly_. She finds it hard to believe Ferdinand has been gone so long.

 _‘Let me go fishing’_ , Byleth had murmured against the curve of Edelgard’s neck above mussed sheets and biting lips before everyone had arrived a week prior, hand curving over her hip and Edelgard’s fingers falling down to her chin and her neck and her heart as she hovered above her, hair cascading like a waterfall of moonlight. It was the decision that made the most sense.

 _‘I hate this_ \--’

_‘...I'm sorry.’_

_‘I_ **_hate_ ** _this, Byleth--’_

A blink, coming back to the present. Do emotions always do this? Are they always so...heavily tied with memories and moments and the flutter of violet eyes like a blue bird’s wings?

“Yes.” Edelgard looks away--unusual, given she’s the type to tackle problems head-on--and Byleth shifts upwards on her elbows.

Byleth’s read thousands of books and nearly half of them mention love. People were _fascinated_ with love and...Byleth was too, in a way. She’d never felt it, and never understood it, and could never quite grasp its importance. On a battlefield she had watched people kill for it and die for it and _live_ for it--

It’s something so complex to capture that it doesn’t have such a simple definition like the other emotions might--it’s like a...box. A wooden, rickety box tenderly made and nailed, full of emotions that are so cluttered and many that they all have to be contained so that they aren't spilled and lost and forgotten.

A box. Maybe this...cluttered thing made out of the wood of her chest filled with a dozen--a hundred--a _thousand_ other emotions inside of it, carefully latched and closed and carried about in a rucksack from campsite to campsite, safely stowed. Hidden.

Yes, a box. This brittle wooden thing with _love_ written on the outside of it. _Love..._ written in an elegant pen by a white-gloved hand. Signed like a letter--like a name--because Byleth would know that hand anywhere it pressed, branding wood and ink and life beneath its touch. A thousand keepsakes of _happiness_ and _hope_ and _anger_ and a million other things Byleth knows the definition to but has only recently fully understood tidied within its cramped confines. _Love._ Some people throw the word around so carelessly--

Manuela, who loves another person every week

\--or have never quite found what was nearby them--

Dorothea, whose letters to her professor list Petra more than anything else

\--or have never found its purpose--

Felix, who loves training, he claims, but loathes the taste of battle before sniping that Sylvain will waste away if he doesn’t join him

\--and Byleth watches the way Edelgard says it as her chin dips. Certain and careful--like the word means more than she might know how to explain, herself, and Byleth thinks of the poems and the operas and the novels she’s read and imagines each of them on El’s lips before she leans up a little further, safely tucking the other woman against her chest. 

She watches the sun dance along her cheek as Edelgard looks up at her through long lashes, blush and nerves tucking up a thin smile.

When Byleth was as tall as his knees, her father crafted her a box, and she thinks **Love** might be like _that._

“El…” Byleth reaches down to curling hand and untucks a glove where a ring has settled for nearly a year, now, hidden away safely out of sight like so many things are. “I asked you to spend your life with me.” She reminds, lips brushing over it in a quiet ceremony. “We’re engaged. You don’t need to be nervous.” 

The blush deepens and when Edelgard tries to turn away, Byleth catches her chin. 

"I--"

“Is it...so hard for you to imagine I love you, too?”

Edelgard is unusually silent for a long moment before her hand raises up to Byleth’s chest, resting over her heart. And she _smiles._ This broken, hopeful thing that reminds Byleth of the night she had returned from half a decade of sleeping, or something close to it, something she doesn't _quite_ understand yet buried deep in those eyes.

“If you do, then it won’t be difficult for you to promise me you’ll do everything in your power to come back to Garreg Mach. Promptly. In a _month’s_ time, not five years. No more _sleeping_.”

“It’s not difficult for me to promise that.” Byleth immediately offers, voice calm, watching the way Edelgard’s features twist and contort beneath their own calm veneer like a fish beneath the pond's surface. “As long as you promise to keep up with your training in Enbarr. I would hate to have to come sooner to whip you into shape. No fighting is no reason for your axe work to get sloppy, Edelgard."

“ _Professor_ ,” Edelgard gripes, though there’s a hint of a smile in her eyes, “I’m being _serious_ . You honestly joke at the _worst_ momen--”

Byleth kisses her, feeling tense shoulders ease beneath her touch as Edelgard’s fingers wind in her hair, pressing them both down into the red quilt they’d stolen from a student’s bed, its hue vibrant and harsh above the green grass that resembles a Goddess's eyes. 

“...I love you, too.” Byleth whispers when they pull away and sees Edelgard’s conflicting shock and contentment in equal measure--her happiness and _nerves--_ but her smile seems to make the whole world feel...unimportant, just for a second. A moment. 

An instant and five years, all in one.

"Then I expect you to return to me...my Empress." Quiet so only Byleth might hear, Edelgard's knuckles skim down Byleth's cheek and the _empress_ lets out a rattling, soft sigh.

All of those books had made love seem so _complicated_ , but it tasted right the moment Edelgard had offered it.

But Byleth doesn't have to ask what _this_ feeling is. They're both far too familiar with war.

An afternoon later, Edelgard’s fingers lingers in her own amongst the troops as their hands clasp to part--their eyes meeting and staying before they can't, anymore--and the Emperor sees her advisor off towards Kleiman, her own convoy heading the opposite way to Enbarr, a box tucked in her bag and a dagger on Byleth's hip. She leads the charge on a horse at the helm, never one to shy away from the front lines, Hubert’s look knowing and calm next to her. 

"Until we meet again, Professor." Hubert offers before turning about his own horse, both of them disappearing into the light cast off of the mountains as Byleth turns towards the darkness behind her, the beast she rides neighing appreciatively as she dips into the quiet shadows left by cascading trees into the sky.

“You look happier, Professor.” Ferdinand casually mentions offhand, the sound of their horses hooves sinking into mud accompanying them during the daylight. He had met her halfway towards Kleiman, their intent to set up another outpost on the outskirts hopefully not heard by anyone else in the Monastery.

There were shadows in every corner, after all. Or at least that's what Hubert liked to enigmatically drawl knowingly every time they talked about the Slithers having spies. 

“Do I?” Her head tilts to the side, remembering her father once saying the same, long ago. She hadn’t realized emotions could ease the knots of muscles until something softer could be seen underneath. Not until Jeralt had mentioned it. She’s getting a little more used to the idea. “And _your_ hair is getting even longer. It suits you.” It's pointed out in kind and Ferdinand preens at the observation, offering a dazzling smile as he sits straighter on his horse. 

“Ah, yes. I had initially thought it was unbecoming of a noble to keep it unmaintained, but I find I like it far more.” His chin tips upwards towards the sun--command looks good on him, as well, their battalion following behind. Well-led and proud. “Edelgard, though my judgement would have been sound without her commentary, did _also_ state that it complimented my eyes, a few years ago, and made me seem more approachable to commoners.” Byleth doubts those were Edelgard’s exact words, “It spoke great volumes that we both were of the same thought. There’s many things I never would have assumed I would have enjoyed outside of the nobility. Who knew hair could provide such a cautiously freeing sense of enjoyment? So I've let it grow longer.” 

“I’ll help you brush it once it reaches your hips.” Byleth helpfully offers and Ferdinand laughs, surprised and shaking it over shoulders. 

“That will not be necessary, Professor.”

“It can be very difficult to maintain.” Byleth seriously continues, pointing towards it off-handedly, “In a battle the last thing you need is a handle for someone to grapple you to the floor with, especially from your horse.” 

Ferdinand scratches at his chin in thought, humming.

“Ah, I had not seen that angle, Professor. Perhaps freedom does come with its costs.” He seems plagued by this for a moment before Byleth nods.

“Dorothea arrives next week, we’ll have her cut it for you. She’s cut mine, before.” After pouting that Byleth had let it turn into a mess, anyways. Which is strange because Byleth’s hair has _always_ been this way.

Was it messy?

_‘Edie can’t run her fingers through a raven’s nest, Professor.’_

_‘I have no idea what that even means, Dorothea.’_

‘ _Oh, hopefully you two aren’t too thick-headed to find out.’ Dorothea’s sigh could push mountains to the edge of Fódlan. 'No wonder why she never gives me any of the good stuff in her letters.'_

_'What?'_

_'Nothing~~'_

"She can keep it long but still manageable. Then you have both freedom and functionality."

Ferdinand perks upwards. “She _does_ seem to have a great amount of experience needing to cut her own hair and not having someone to do it for her.”

Byleth sighs. 

He’s making _progress_ , perhaps that’s the best they can ask of him.

 _Fondness_ \--she can hear Edelgard murmur in her ear, a phantom’s touch as her smile might skirt along her cheek.

A smile, soft and quiet, graces Byleth's lips, in kind.

“It suits you, as well.” Ferdinand offers and Byleth tilts her head to the side to regard him, a little distracted in her thoughts as they continue on. “Happiness.”

Ferdinand just smiles and Byleth nods after a long moment, realization donning. 

She’s read about Happiness: it’s the thing people lose in war; the emotion that sparks up the edges of their lips into a smile, or fills them with contentment when faced with something they’ve done that’s _good_ ; it’s the emotion that everyone fights for and searches for as desperately as love, just as elusive and fickle, or so it seems in books and operas and plays.

 **Happiness** is the word she thinks her father would have liked the most to hear she learned.

 **Happiness**. It’s a word Byleth knew the definition to, but never quite understood. 

Not until Edelgard gave it to her.

 _Love suits me, El_ \--she can imagine humming along her shoulder, because for now the only emotion she can imagine settling in that sanded, shaped box labelled ‘love’ is the rattling, large one named _happiness_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is very much the exposition to the rest of the fic, so we'll see how this goes!
> 
> I appreciate you reading and feel free to let me know what you think.
> 
> Requests/prompts: [ Tumblr ](https://notoriousjae.tumblr.com)


	2. A Box

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where does Byleth put a person like Edelgard? How does Byleth hold her as she walks from camp to camp so that she doesn’t get lost in a bog--in this dirty pit of mud and dried blood and fire and rain and ash and felled trees and lost men and fathers and siblings and goddesses?--where does Byleth hold her, so that Byleth doesn’t lose her? So that Edelgard can be planted, someday so that El can grow, instead?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did finally edit through Ch1, so if you enjoy reading through things with significantly less comma-splices, please feel free to re-read. :') 
> 
> If you'd like to send me any requests (why not?) I'll probably go back to my [ Tumblr ](https://notoriousjae.tumblr.com) to everyone's great detriment probs. I love ridiculous prompts for pairings that need some fic, so feel free.
> 
> I appreciate you reading!
> 
> Also slight smut ahead so...nsfw been warned

When Byleth was as tall as Jeralt’s knees, he’d made her a box. A rough, inelegantly-shaped thing that had far more charm than actual craftsmanship--fashioned by the well-stroped edge of a hunter’s knife, but never sanded. It was heavy, made from the thick of a tree trunk, and it took many moons for her to realize how to carry it properly without stumbling, small stature determined to mount its hefty weight regardless of the quiet snickering behind her. 

And the rallying cries once she learned how to hop over trees with its weight strapped to her back, buried in the thick scrunched black of a makeshift bag.

Byleth knew she was as tall as Jeralt's knees, exactly, because she was always beside them. She didn’t stretch upwards like other children did, spindly arms and stubby fingertips curving like anxious trees reaching for the sun--not that she had _seen_ many children outside of their rare trips to towns for contracts, but this is what they _looked_ like to her. Like small little shrubs, stiff and hobbled and stout. Dependent and unable to move their legs upon their own. Byleth didn’t have the words to voice such thoughts as a child, or the complexity to place them, but she had the distaste all the same, like a weight someone else carried along with her. Something in her knew how to walk, it just had to _learn_ again, and one day she simply did. And when she learned, oddly slim fingertips calmly swung by hips as she charted a path beside Jeralt; she never remembered stumbling or crawling--didn’t remember much, really, at all--but she does remember walking. 

A lot of walking.

If Byleth had crawled, it hadn’t been for long.

Jeralt’s callouses were rough when he would reach down to help her over a prickly log full of sharp splinters and edges or from getting feet tangled about vines as they traversed through the bogs West of Lake Teutales. Sometimes she would sink down to her knees in the mud and muck and _then_ she was as high as the edge of his boots, no higher, and his laugh would ring through the bogs. 

But he would...bend down and hold her, then, when she would fall. 

His arms were warm and strong and he never stumbled, carrying her, until she learned not to sink into the mud, too, and he wouldn’t carry her, anymore.

He never carried her, again.

(But one day Edelgard did). 

Byleth isn’t certain of how many moons passed, but Jeralt fashioned a box out of one of those trees from Teutales. 

_Gotta exact revenge, kid!--_ rumbling and rousing and full of life and scratches like a match catching along a board.

Yes, it’s when she was as high as his knees that she started remembering the most. They would spend their mornings walking and afternoons hunting, his hands firm on her back to straighten them until her fingers didn’t quiver about a bow’s edge, and she would scout far ahead for them, at times, before returning to the crackling rustle of a fire. Some of the men in the company would show her how to fight other ways, when she was as tall as _their_ knees. With their fists and their axes and their lances and the glowing brush of fire from their fingertips, all of their palms scarred and full of puckered flesh, flies buzzing about heads in the only way Byleth knew flies to be: swarming and ever-present. 

And Jeralt would sit to the side and drink and laugh and tell stories as his knife buried into the trunk of a tree that had felled the Ashen _squirt_. 

Byleth used to pick up branches and stones and twigs, curious how they felt beneath her fingertips, staring at them for a time until Jeralt would call her over to him, wondering what she was doing. He would give her a quizzical look and she would stare, unblinking, and most days he would sigh and leave it at that...until one day when he called her over to him he knelt down, as well. She was a little taller, then, but not quite as tall as his hips. Maybe as tall as his belt, satchel hanging slightly lower than the rest of him.

_You’ve been carrying all this stuff around with you, kid._

Byleth simply stared, watching as Jeralt’s cut hand curved around the back of his stiff neck, the man not minding the bandage, wounded from a bandit’s lance mere hours before. Some of the men around the fire cried about wounds when no one else could see them, but Jeralt never did. Neither did Byleth. 

One of the men (Abner) claimed Jeralt was her father--said it so obviously--and Byleth had guessed it must have been so, if neither of them cried at things people were supposed to cry about.

The bandit's lance killed Matias, who had taught Byleth how to garden many suns before. Their lance pierced straight through Matias’ thick neck (so thick that Byleth would wrap her arms around it when Matias would carry her in the woods to see up into the highest trees and watch the highest birds and see the highest clouds) speckling Byleth’s face with dried flecks of red that glowed underneath their campfire in the nighttime air, moist and boggy from the swamps surrounding their band of men that was smaller, now, by one. Byleth had snapped the bandit’s lance in half with her small boot like Jeralt had taught her and pulled it out of Matias’ still neck before plunging it through the bandit’s eye, straight into Jeralt’s hand, who had moved to pull the bandit back by his head away from Byleth and Matias’ slump, lifeless form.

Maybe too quickly, Byleth always thought in retrospect. Frantically, without paying attention. It was unlike Jeralt to be frantic about anything, at all.

And Byleth remembers that night well.

She blinked and watched the fire engulfing the nearby tavern light up an emotion she wouldn’t understand _until Edelgard_ \--until Byleth was taller than Jeralt would ever be, a full man under the ground, far below her.

Where Byleth can’t reach down to help him, above the roots and the trees and the bogs, because he fell too far into them, and she wasn't quick enough to reach out her hand to help him.

She hadn’t meant to hurt him when she was a child, but he was more careful offering her his hand as they walked through the bog, that night. It was clear Byleth could carry herself over her own branches, now that she was almost as tall as his hips.

She took it as acceptance. It was the way things were. She didn't have a word for it and didn't know what fear was, but she noted that look in all of the men's eyes. That same look Byleth would see underneath the silver gleam of a sword and a golden crack of a Creator and in violet eyes, trembling, when the whole world was surrounded in quaking, engulfing fire. 

Matias wasn't there, but Abner was, who taught her how to lift an axe high up in her palms despite the weapon being larger than her--the same skill she would see in an Emperor, someday, a world hefted on shoulders too slim to bear it. He didn't lift her into branches and skies, but he did clap her shoulder with a gusting laugh through his beard and told her she was one of them, now.

So she wouldn't be held from the vines or the trees or the stumbling. And she wouldn't be lifted up in the air, and she wouldn't lose the things they'd shown her. 

And Jeralt still knelt in front of her, that night, knee scratching along the dirt.

 _You’ve been carrying all this stuff around, kid_. 

The bandage glowed like the specks of blood on Byleth’s cheek--a fact she only knew because she could see herself in his ale, reflection full of dirt and grime. Blood dried a little brown. She knew that color because it was the color of Jeralt’s boots and dirt and the tree branch, splintered and broken, that Jeralt was holding in his unwounded hand. ‘ _Why? You know it’s just gonna be harder to move from camp to camp, right?’_

Byleth carefully reached up to run fingers over the branch.

 _‘Not gonna tell me, huh?’_ She remembers him saying, smile tired and slim and she watched the way the fire licked up his cheek like an overzealous pegasus. It was different, now, than it had been the night before--and different, now, than it had been a few hours prior, in front of Matias--and different, now, for the rest of time, even though she would never have the chance to ask why, because she hadn’t known it was a question. She never asked Jeralt why things were so different when she killed a man that killed a man that was going to kill her--

Why, when that was all she knew how to do?

What was so different about not having a heart beat?

Her small head barely tilted to the side, curious, instead. There were no questions.

‘ _Guess you’ve never really talked, have you? I know you understand me, but--’_

 **_‘Matias said seeds grow when you plant them_ ** _.’_

Byleth offered, quiet and voice as calm as her eyes--as calm as the unmoving ale in Jeralt’s cup. He blinked. And he laughed, a little, this gruff, rasping noise, and he watched her. Byleth doesn’t remember if she ever spoke, before this, but it didn’t really matter to remember, and she still isn’t sure why this would matter, at all.

Why do people remember things, when they’ve already happened? Why do people feel things, when the feelings will change and go? 

_‘Yeah, I guess so, huh?’_ He looked down at the branch and held it up to her, dirt and blood from his fingertips caking the small branch as Byleth carefully raised it up to the light. ‘ _Is that why you’re hiding all this stuff? Carrying it around? To, uh...plant it? You know they're not seeds, right?’_

Byleth was quiet underneath the campfire, silence of the night settling around her shoulders like a dream. All she remembers about that next moment is lost in time--a picture of Jeralt smiling in the fire. She doesn’t remember what he did, or what he really said, or how he looked other than that smile. And that branch. 

And him pulling up a box from behind his back, something he’d spent a long time whittling away like time and ale and laughter, at night. 

Byleth doesn’t think she answered his question--doesn’t know if it matters--doesn’t know if he might hear her, now, as she stares up at the night sky, stars speckled around her like paint, Ferdinand’s tent open and him slumped next to her, faintly sleeping, never one to be outdone, even by his teacher. 

Their own campfire lighting up the darkest parts of the sky. 

She'll tell him in the morning that he did a valiant job keeping watch. Ferdinand does better with praise than critique--he isn't Edelgard.

 _Keep them in this, kid_ . _Keep ‘em safe. Can’t plant anything if you don’t keep it safe, huh?_

There's that memory--that _smile_. If she described it to Edelgard, could she paint it? Could Edelgard paint Jeralt like Edelgard had painted her? 

Little Byleth had opened the box and dropped a small little rock Jeralt had skipped across a bog the day before, inside, where Matias had picked it up with a hearty laugh and a jest about the bladebreaker’s mighty throw. 

The fire filled smoke into the heavy air.

A little girl had sleepily dropped her chin to a shoulder that barely rose to below Jeralt’s belt, then, in the still of night, warmth and wind tucking up both of their fingers as they skimmed along the wooden, rough edges of the crafted safe.

Feeling it for the first time.

Voice so very, very tired--

 **How can lost things be found if you can’t grow them, again? With a rock or a tree or a coin or a heart? If you plant trinkets like seeds in the soil--if you put these special, precious things in a box--will they stay safe until they grow?** **Will they stay safe until they matter? Will they stay safe until a child can be a tree and a person made of trees might be a child? Curious. So curious**

 _What is a heart, anyways_? Sothis had wondered, gliding over the box Byleth kept by her bedside, what she’d learned to be years and years later, examinations graded and stacked next to it, ethereal, ephemeral palms drifting over the scratched wood of a branch they’d once tripped upon.

The one that felled the Ashen Demon.

Byleth didn’t respond to Sothis, she had merely opened the box and slid Edelgard’s birthday letter inside.

Byleth looks down at the letter in her hands, now, thumbs running along the wrinkling edges like a map--a place she can see without reading the words other people have taken the time to claim--and folds it neatly before sliding it into the hilt by her hip, a dagger forged of Adrestrian steel tucked safely inside. 

She watches the stars and remembers the ones Jeralt claimed were watching her back and wonders if he's one of them, looking down. Ready.

The hand she wounded held out, waiting for her to join him.

\--

**Red Wolf Moon, 1187.**

"Byleth--" The moon has settled on Edelgard's skin with such a fine glow that she brightens the whole room, herself, calm smile settled above them. Dorothea writes Byleth long letters from Brigid frequently, rarely satisfied with her short responses, and one of them had included a manuscript for a play about a woman that had become the moon in order to bastion her forces of wolves in the West (and ultimately thwart the Tyrannical Church). Byleth's critique came from reading thousands of manuscripts, over the years, but her resounding thought was simple:

_'It reminds me of Edelgard.'_

And she could hear Dorothea's laugh like the curling scent of her perfume along the parchment that returned backwards, the letter long but ultimately presented with a much lengthier assessment of a simple sentence:

 _'Of course it does.'_ But her P.S. was what lingered on Byleth's mind: ' _That is_ _a little funny, though, since she happened to tell me that it reminded her of you. Isn't it?'_

"Come in."

It's not uncommon for Byleth to visit Edelgard's chambers after dark but it's never truly _been_ uncommon, at all. The rumors had spread long ago over what exactly an ex-professor and Emperor were doing, but _she_ hadn't paid them any mind. People would talk. They had from the time she was a teacher to the time Edelgard was an Emperor, and would talk far after both of them were gone.

(Hubert, on the other hand, had absolutely no problem looking at his old professor and dryly sighing, long-winded and barely sustaining her presence, or so he would want her to believe, ‘ _you_ **_do_ ** _know what they all think you’re doing in there, don’t you?’_ the impassive look that followed rivaling his old professor's. She’d merely shrugged at this exact encounter in response before simply continuing down the hall, one night, prior to the early morning sun breaking the clouds. 

‘ _I suppose her Majesty..._ **_does_ ** _sleep better with your visits.’_ Hummed to himself days later, petting the point of a chin and looking thoughtful over Byleth’s use. Although he seemed utterly uninterested in the fact that Byleth was, in fact, sitting across from him in the dining hall, commotion hiding the internal debate he was turning from soliloquy to monologue, ‘ _And she_ **_does_ ** _require sleep in order to fulfill her duties. Fine. I don’t see the point in curtailing your visits._ **_For now_ ** _. But be warned, I_ **_will_ ** _dispose of you, Professor.’_ At least he was learning to be blunt. It made Byleth smile, just a tad.

Shamir, who had begrudgingly joined them at Byleth's behest, gave her the look a fellow mercenary understood all too well as she slurped up a noodle with deadly efficiency: 

**_You're not paying me enough for this_ **)

Initially it was...not _innocent_ \--what would the word be for intent that feels selfish in time? Despite the consequences, or stakes. Would...conversations be innocent, when both Byleth and Edelgard knew fully well what they were doing? Occasionally conversations that ran _long_ into the night--and sometimes no conversation, at all, finding a few small moments in each other’s company that they could only steal in the shadows, like most things in their lives for the time being. Their encounters during the day were usually cut short, after all, and the only thing that might cut night short was the sharp knife of the sun slitting across the sky.

And Byleth would listen to Edelgard talk openly about the things in those shadows that she couldn’t in the light of day, without anyone’s ears but her own to listen--what they’ve done since Byleth returned from a dream to a war, to _Edelgard_. And Edelgard would ask her...questions and trace Byleth’s scars like she’s plotting a map, each week carefully stripping another layer of clothing off of her frame, growing bolder and bolder as she settled into Byleth’s arms, wrapping comfortably around her back. And sometimes, there were no words, at all, simply Byleth or Edelgard’s knock upon a door and lips and warmth and tangling fingers until the sun might rise.

It’s nothing compared to the rumors.

(But there’s _nothing_ compared to kissing Edelgard, anyways.)

And it's clear it _would_ bemore than just kissing Edelgard...but they haven’t found the time for the extraordinarily passionate and physically impossible sex Anna at the gates has been recalling they had to the Gatekeeper, either. A fact bluntly recalled to the Emperor herself over tea weeks prior, to an amused, stifled laugh, hidden behind that slim, elegant glove.

 _'She said we did_ **_what_ ** _in the stables? I'm not_ **_Sylvain.'_ **

_'I also don't think you're that flexible.' Byleth's head tips to the side, brows barely knitting as eyes track up and down, lips barely pursing as she tries, for a moment, to imagine it. That heat of another kind flooding her chest and her clenching stomach and her eyes. 'I don't think anyone is.'_

_The same heat, it seems, that floods Edelgard's cheeks, however dark her eyes seem. Have they always been that shade of amethyst, swirling and swirling like dark magic in a palm, beautiful and powerful and so vigilant, from its shadows?_

_'You forget, My Teacher,' Red gauntlets smooth out the elegant cloth along the table prior to standing, voice calm and confident despite that blush, 'That I've always risen to any challenge you've ever issued.'_

_'That is true, Edelgard.'_

_Byleth spends this evening tasting the noise Edelgard makes when she feels a quick heartbeat beneath a flattening tongue, fingertips curling almost reflexively into hips as a ring catches in blue hair, hidden beneath the bleachers of the arena of Garreg Mach, tangled on the rumpled bed of a cloak to the moonlight sifting through splintered wooden beams._

_They wind up having to tactically disengage and ultimately retreat when two cadets stumble unknowingly near targets in the fog, Edelgard nearly getting her crown lodged in the wood in their haste to leave._

_'They should be focused on their studies--' Edelgard had yanked Byleth into the coliseum changing room to fix an askew shirt, hastily tugged back on, and Byleth curiously plucks a piece of wood shaving off of the edge of a horn. That smooth voice is far more amused than serious, the air still warming their cheeks._

_'They looked focused.' Byleth's head tips and El laughs, quiet, both of them looking far more presentable the second time the same cadets nearly stumble into them, both of them disheveled and panting, wide-eyed, backing up through the large stadium doors._

_Clearly Byleth needs to have another lesson on paying attention to surroundings._

_'I think we lost 'em, Lydia--'_

' _I don't think Professor Manuela was looking for us. I mean, did you see how far her tongue was down that guy's--'_

_Edelgard clears her throat, calm and regal, gloved hand curled over lips doing an impressive job of hiding the hint of a smile Byleth can see behind fingertips._

_The cadets turn to stare in abject horror._

_'P-professor--' And then, further, deeper horror, 'Emperor Edelgard--we--'_

_'I--'_

_Byleth has learned, as a Professor, that excuses can be...elaborate. There's something involving a missing earring when ears aren't pierced--a scarf when it's warm out--_

_'Oof!'_

_Manuela and--is that the secretary to the Almyran Ambassador?--stumble into the cadets that had stumbled into the door, jostling them and nearly knocking them over._

_'Professor! Edelgard!' Manuela chirps, a little too lively and likely tipsy, the Ambassador's shirt half undone. He's toned in a way Byleth is certain Manuela will recall in vivid detail for the next week regardless of the fact that Byleth has seen him and didn't ask for any details._ ' _Out for a late night stroll?'_

 _'Something like that.' Edelgard offers, 'Unless any of you would like the opportunity to spar us, instead?'_ Byleth wryly _smiles as everyone stammers out excuses before scrambling back the way they came, Emperor humming to an empty room as she twines their fingers and guides Byleth much, much closer--_

_'That's not going to help the rumors.' It's a little amused, murmuring against lips that she feels spread upwards._

_'Good.'_

In this--in their own secrets and shadows--neither one of them has anyone else to answer for, after all. 

Edelgard, herself, had poked fun at it several times with blushing cheeks and a smile that grows easier by the day, despite the war that holds down her shoulders yalm by yalm alongside. 

_‘This must look like such a scandal. They all probably think you’re my concubine.’_

_‘I’m not?’ Byleth’s head tilts to the side, not really certain about the terminology regarding sovereign love interests, and Edelgard’s fond slap of her shoulder is quick enough to tell her she thinks she’s joking. The taller of the two is settled with her back against the wall, cool against the bindings she’d sustained from a broken rib a week prior--an otherwise successful mission to the West routing bandits for Garreg Mach’s caravans._

_Manuela had pointed at her colleague and told her not to laugh too hard, to which Byleth had bluntly asked if_ **_that_ ** _was considered a joke, causing a rather lengthy silence to ensue before she was immediately discharged with a heavy, hungover sigh._

 _‘_ **_No._ ** _’ Firm and unamused. This stirs Byleth’s chest. Warm._

 _“You mean you_ **_don’t_ ** _intend to marry another--”_

 _“_ **_No._ ** _’ The levity falls from Edelgard’s lips, leaning back from where she’s fixing Byleth’s bandages. A noble, certainly, but the Emperor herself had seen far too many wounded to not know how to do a simple dressing. Or...at least that’s what she insisted when she claimed Byleth was doing it wrong five minutes prior, shooing hands away to have her lean up against the bed. Byleth has_ **_also_ ** _seen too many wounded to not know how to do a simple dressing, but she finds she likes Edelgard doing it for her, regardless. It’s...what’s the word for it?_

_Is this their version of domestic? For some reason, the thought makes Byleth feel...warm, again._

_And El always feels much calmer when she has something to **do** with her hands, instead of just commanding. She always has, Byleth knows._

_“I told you I think it’s time tradition over nobles ends, and that includes Empiric rule by royal bloodline.’_

_‘I know, Edelgard.’ It's said gently--_ **_smiling._ **

_‘Oh.’ A beat, realization and accusation donning in equal measure: ‘You’re_ **_teasing_ ** _me?’_

_‘Sorry.’ Those white fingers curl around Byleth's bicep and squeeze at the apology and it's this subtle nudge that makes her realize it's a sign to continue, 'You agreed to marry me, someday. I thought that conversation was…clear on both of our ends.’_

_‘Oh, good, for a second you made me think--’ A dull slap against her shoulder, again, buried in Edelgard’s laughter as Byleth skims lips over her jaw and wraps the arm not cut off by a wad of binding cloth about an Emperor’s waist, holding her close. Well, as close as she might with a broken thing in her chest that, for once, has nothing to do with a still beat, just the bone that protects it. ‘You had me worried, if only momentarily.' A sigh, 'It’s a shame that day isn’t tomorrow.’_

_A tomorrow without those who Slither in the Dark._

_‘I can’t wait for tomorrow.’_

_‘Neither can I. Now straighten up and let’s fix this mess of a bandage. You’re supposed to spar me today, Professor. I can’t get sloppy simply because you decided to brazenly cover Shamir’s volley. Quite the tale, as Alois tells it. After he single-handedly felled twelve bandits with only the hilt of his axe.’ Edelgard’s gloved hand raises up to gently cover around the wrap, leaning down to brush lips so tenderly over the top of it. Responding when she sees Byleth’s curious look, ‘You don’t want to hear the story.’_

_She's far too focused on that curious feeling in her chest, beating and beating and beating._

_Normally, she might ask Edelgard, but they **do** have places to be, this morning, and neither of them appreciate being late._

_‘Okay.’_

And _eventually, w_ hat started as an occurrence every week slowly became every few days--and then every night, Byleth slipping out into an old student corridor in the early hours of the morning, not necessarily to dissuade the spreading rumors of Byleth’s scandalous rendezvous with the Emperor...but to _strengthen_ them.

Or at least that’s what Hubert insisted.

A simple tactic, really. Change in some areas needed to come slow, and if Edelgard was still contemplating marrying nobility, there was a chance the Slitherers might leverage their hand early to showcase which other nations they held dominion in in an attempt to once more pull Edelgard under their control.

(Marry _this_ Kingdom, Edelgard--)

Arundel had suggested as much many times, after all, with a pointed look to Byleth, who rarely left Edelgard’s side.

A ring is only worn openly in night and the small, sliver hours of the morning prior to being tucked safely away underneath a glove or a gauntlet for the day, similar to how Byleth would safely tuck Edelgard in her arms, under moonfall. 

One day there would be _less_ need for deceit, but Byleth rations that at least this time she’s helping _create_ it. 

Tonight, however, the door shuts with a quiet click as Byleth raises Edelgard’s hidden hand up to her lips, brushing along a cluster of small stones, watching the way El’s features soften in that moonlight before those bare hands reach up to pull her close, their foreheads slotting together.

Byleth feels... _warm_ when Edelgard holds her close. 

“There are still a few letters I have to write before I can sleep,” El sighs, leaning up into her and twining their fingers before _sighing_ once more and easing down onto bare feet, “Care to keep me company?” 

Byleth nods, sinking into the warmth of Edelgard’s lips brushing over the high rise of her cheek before she settles down onto the small mattress, watching that elegant stroke of a pen beneath candlelight across the room, book tucked in her own lap. 

These nights, with the wind whistling through a cracked window, and the moonlight covering both of them, are always... _peaceful._

It isn’t long before Edelgard is gently sliding the book from fingertips and replacing parchment with herself, once-hesitant touches now full of confidence as arms wrap around Byleth’s craning neck. 

Biceps flex as they wrap around El’s waist, hefting her up into her lap on the bed. 

“One of those letters was to Dorothea.” It’s hummed in the air above Byleth’s lips, who raises waiting eyes. “Among her romanticized scandals of the guard, she made sure to include how rumors of our--” A gesture from Byleth to herself, “Recently _tense_ relations have reached Brigid. Petra apparently laughed at the story she’d heard from her guard regaling you throwing an entire vat of cold stew in my face when I mentioned I was betrothed to a prince from another kingdom. Dorothea said it’s difficult to find herself in Petra’s shoes, as she had to have her recount the story four times in her natural tongue before understanding it. Although, knowing Dorothea, she might have just enjoyed the image of our dear professor hurtling stew in my face and wanted to hear it repeated.” 

“That is a...very specific rumor.” Byleth’s head tilts and Edelgard’s nails rake through the hair against her scalp so softly that eyelashes flutter. Byleth frowns, “I would never waste stew.” 

“I'm no longer surprised that’s your lasting impression of this, my love.” 

“It’s working, at least.” Byleth nods, thoughtful as her fingers skim beneath the hem of Edelgard’s shirt, feeling her shiver at the smallest brush of nails. “Hubert has a good mind for espionage.” Edelgard's resounding hum is nothing short of appraisal.

“And scheming.” 

“Of course.” A quiet smile, leaning upwards to sigh along Edelgard’s jaw. “I’ve debated asking him to lead a seminar on it.” 

“I’m also unsurprised that you do not sound like you’re joking.” 

“I don’t joke about education, Edelgard.” That smile spreads, just a tad. _Mirth_ is something she’s learned here, too. 

“Oh, no, of course not, my teacher.” Nails rake against skin a little harder and blue eyes grow just a little darker, leaning up to kiss her. Slowly. Lingering, fingers pushing up underneath the hem of that shirt until it's bunched around wrists, something _content_ and _restless_ both aching within her at the warmth of Edelgard's skin. “I suppose I...do wish I could tell our dearest friends the truth about us.” El murmurs against parted lips, eyes half-lidded and knees tucking against Byleth’s waist. "Dorothea keeps trying to drop _hints_ about me marrying _you_ instead of Arundel's noble."

False rumors about _this_ bother Edelgard more than anyone else will ever know, Byleth understands. A lifetime plagued with them, but she thinks on _this_ for a moment.

After all, what does a rumor like this say about Edelgard, the Emperor of Fódlan who longed to do away with noble blood? What does it say about the woman who would push down her love for political prestige, similar to her father and her father’s father and her father’s father’s father, before her? What does it say about just Edelgard, not the Crimson Emperor, who loves Byleth so vehemently in the dark and longs to live a life in the light? 

Byleth cups her cheek, leaning back to meet Edelgard’s eyes fully. Watching the moonlight sink into them and light the edges like starlight.

“We will.” It's a promise--and not one Byleth makes lightly. “We can tell them tomorrow, and you know I’ll stand with you, no matter what you choose.” 

This makes El’s lips ease upwards, a rattling breath settling between them. 

“I know, my love.” 

“When we... _do_ marry,” The word had seemed so foreign to Byleth, once, and now it spreads something warm and hot through her, like sunlight. She leans upwards, their fingers twining, palm to palm in the shadows settled in the dormitory. Is this what it’s like to be a child reaching up like a tree towards heat? Towards the sun? Maybe some things _needed_ to be learned, not relearned--sought after. Fought for. “They’ll all be there, alive and happy for us.” 

El shifts in her lap so that her back is against Byleth’s front, those twined hands wrapping around her waist and settling along Edelgard’s stomach, like she’s showing a journey laid out for them, tracing a battle trajectory on a map.

A goddess weaving the inevitable future of time. 

She’s not as elegant with words as Edelgard, but she tries:

“Those Who Slither in the Dark will be...behind us, and so will the war. I don’t know if the people we’ve lost will be watching over us, but our allies will be. We’ll have a private ceremony, and a public one--only because you’ve said it makes sense to do both--” She doesn’t have to see it to feel Edelgard’s quiet smile stretching up into the air.

“Dorothea will say something that will make me blush and you look at her with that...adorably curious look of yours.” El’s head tips a little, free hand snaking upwards to cup the jaw barely above her shoulder as they look out the window, “And Ferdinand will give a _grueling_ , long speech.” 

“Which will be heartfelt.” Byleth nods, “And Linhardt will act like he’s not enjoying himself.”

“Caspar will probably enjoy himself a little _too_ much,” El grouses, thumb running over her knuckle. “I can see the guards complaining in the morning after all the drunken carnage.”

“Which I’m sure Alois will also be responsible for.”

“Oh, just imagine all of the knights Manuela will scandalize and all the polite conversations regarding _crests_ from dear Hanneman--”

“Petra will spend the evening dancing and Ingrid will be dutiful, making sure no one causes _too_ much commotion.”

“Maybe Mercedes will enlist Jeritza to make us a cake.”

“ _You_ could likely get him to make a cake, El.” Byleth points out to an endlessly amused chuckle.

“Not without poisoning you.”

Byleth hums in acknowledgment. That is true. “Our allies from Abyss will lurk in the shadows. I guess...literally in Yuri and Constance's cases."

"Which is where Bernadetta will be, hiding behind Yuri. And simultaneously from him."

"Sylvain will try to sweep you off your feet one last time."

" _Me?"_ A tutt from the woman who's watched Byleth as long as she's watched her, "Oh, my love, you're many things, but I didn't think you oblivious."

"...he did transfer to the Black Eagles solely because I was a woman."

"I'm certain your, hm…" A cleared throat, blush somehow returning even in an open dream of marriage, "...definable assets assisted in his decision making process. Mine," Insistent, "Of course, were all professional."

"Of course." Byleth nods. "If Sylvain, Ingrid, and Mercedes are there, Felix will be there, as well."

"And Leonie would never miss it."

"Neither," A smile, "Will Lysithea."

"It will be a lively night, won't it? Full of laughter and happiness. I feel we've all fought hard for that future, and earned a glimpse of it." El's eyelashes flutter and Byleth eases her back closer. Wraps tighter around her.

Feels that fluttering warmth spread up from her chest to her throat and settle everywhere Edelgard does.

"Hubert will be happy, you know.”

“...I know.” El’s thumb dips down along her knuckle and squeezes. “He likes you. He’ll never say it, but I’m certain he’s happy that I’m happy.”

“Are you, El?” It’s a curious question--serious--leaning a little back until shoulders are settled against the wall and Edelgard twists towards her like Byleth might be air she's trying to catch with her fingertips, knuckles raising to caress her cheek. And Byleth leans into her--leans into the warmth of those hands and the familiarity of that heartbeat and the settling weight of Edelgard as she shifts fully to sit in her lap, like she's holding all of that air down from the sky. "Happy."

She tastes it on her mouth and _knows_ this word and wonders why it rasps on her own tongue--wonder why her chest feels so...tight and why Edelgard sounds so _adamant_ when their eyes meet.

“I’m very happy, Byleth. Every day I spend with you fills me with so _much_ joy, I’m…” A quiet, small laugh--the vulnerable side of El hidden so deep in the shadows, tied so long to a table that the scars are still visible on the flexing wrists of her voice, “...frightened I’ll wake up into a horrible nightmare without you.” 

Byleth’s brows knit, both hands raising to cup the wrists about her chin, watching the way Edelgard... _holds_ her, ring catching moonlight and the soft sadness of that slim, hopeful smile. 

This happiness makes Byleth breathless.

And Byleth's lips part and a quiet, startling gasp comes out, like someone's fist has lodged itself in her stomach. 

“What do you feel?” El asks for her, those hands steady as they curve from knuckles to fingertips, holding Byleth here in front of her, “What do you feel right now?” 

“I…” Thumbs curve over El’s pulse and she goes through all the words she knows, and all the definitions she’s heard, and all the experiences she’s had, and shakes her head at one fight that feels insurmountable, impossible to define. What does she feel? "I don't know."

"What do you know? What are you thinking?" They've gotten good at this game.

What is she thinking? That Edelgard is beautiful, here--that she became the moonlight trapped in the sky and she's holding Byleth here before she can float away. That she--

She--

Those brows knit deeper.

What does she _know_?

“I want to spend my life with you. I...never want to leave your side. That's all I know. I don't...know anything else.”

It’s not as much an emotion as it is something she _feels_ , fully.

There's no wrong or right answers, here, with Edelgard--most of this they've traversed _together_ , like mountains lined with corpses, markers sticking from the ground--but it must mean _something_ , because that calm expression crumbles, just a little, into something...trembling.

“My love.” El murmurs before she kisses her, deep and full and so consuming Byleth finds herself quaking beneath her, herself, even though she isn’t sure why. Breath hot against her tongue, promising into the deepest parts of her: “My life is yours to have, one day.”

"So is mine." Her voice is much lower, now, their noses brushing as Byleth shifts her closer on her hips--as she feels Edelgard arch into her, the thin shirt she'd worn despite the cold outside in anticipation of Byleth's arrival slowly charting up tensing muscles.

Edelgard always tenses-- _always--_

And Byleth brushes lips over the dip of a neck, tasting that gasp--fingers twine in hair, pulling her close, pushing off the weight of a cloak down shoulders until warm, bare hands smooth down biceps and up shoulders until black fabric bunches in her hands--and Byleth's fingertips chart the topography of mountains and valleys and the rivers of scars and the moonlight of hips--

A quiet, startled moan as Byleth's hand skims a little lower along a clenching thigh than it usually does, leaning upwards to taste that noise, too.

"It'll be ours, Byleth." Edelgard sounds almost...desperate and embarrassed and _beautiful_. Vulnerable, Byleth realizes. She looks _vulnerable_ when she tugs up Byleth's chin before it can venture down, once more, kissing her again--and again--and _again_ until Byleth is pushing them both down onto the bed. 

"It'll be ours, El." Byleth promises, shirt tangling in her shoulders and arms and hair for a breathless laugh below her before Edelgard discards the material somewhere over the foot of the bed, a ring-clad hand chasing down the front of her chest. 

That moonlight soaks into the crimson sheet tangled below them like hidden vines in a bog, its eerie glow casting Edelgard like a painting and Byleth's skin _burns_ where her love touches her, learning every inch of her, and she wonders if Edelgard feels the same.

If Edelgard knows how _Byleth_ feels, as they shift along the sheets until a gasp bounces off the wall like a wayward arrow and nails curl into shoulders. Edelgard's skin tastes like flowers and tea and sweat as she kisses every inch of her she can, until she eases a little more comfortably into the sheets and looks at her with--with--

What does that look mean? What does it _mean_ , to have someone like a memento? Like a seed?

Where does Byleth put a person like Edelgard? How does Byleth hold her as she walks from camp to camp so that she doesn’t get lost in a bog--in this dirty pit of mud and dried blood and fire and rain and ash and felled trees and lost men and fathers and siblings and goddesses?--where does Byleth hold her, so that Byleth doesn’t lose her? So that Edelgard can be planted, someday so that El can grow, instead?

“Byleth--” Edelgard gasps against her mouth, her hands pushing down to curve underneath the thin fabric of shorts, tugging hips close until they both gasp, knees spreading and muscles trembling and that curving, wonderful back arching along the bed, “Byleth--” Edelgard prays into the nighttime air around them, holding Byleth so tight she knows nails will bruise into skin until it’s red and then brown and then nothing, at all, as lips curve around breasts. 

“El…” Byleth murmurs, raising up on burning arms to kiss her, fingers shifting and curling and--she’s read about this. All of this. But she’s never _felt_ it.

She promises, chest tight and muscles clenching and this--this feeling--this _feeling--_

“Byleth--” Eyes are wrenching shut before they open, wet and _wide_ and far too vulnerable for Edelgard to likely ever _intentionally_ look at Byleth in such a way, fingers raising to hold her and _hold her_ as she gasps and arches and-- “I--”

Edelgard, Byleth learns, is warm and wet, like silken sheets--beautiful and soft and shining in their soft hue.

"What do you feel, El?" Byleth wonders, voice low and full of... _desire_ and so many more things she doesn't know how to name--their foreheads slotted as Byleth's hands venture places they've never been.

"I--" Edelgard's voice cracks on the air, rocking up towards her--

 _Please_ , Edelgard quakes so quiet that she might never had said it, at all. 

Her voice cracks and Byleth kisses her until her moans are lost into the depth of Byleth’s lungs and she tastes her own name and holds Edelgard as tightly as she knows how. 

Their bodies fit so well, holding her was something Byleth never truly had to learn. 

“Stay…” It's not the first thing she expects Edelgard to say, rasping a little and...content after her breath evens. Half-lidded as she curls knees around Byleth's waist and pulls her closer, once more, gasping as they shift. “Stay until the morning.”

Byleth kisses her, again, in response, slow and intimate until Edelgard's hands smooth down breasts and the kiss breaks only for Byleth to look down curiously at the sensation. At the look in dark eyes. 

At that hesitant, pleasing smile that tucks up Edelgard's lips. 

“I’d like...I’d like to be with you, as well. If you’d like.”

“Is that something you would like?” Byleth's head barely dips until a waterfall of tangled blue, dark in the moonlight, traces along the top of Edelgard's bare breasts, watching her. 

“...you--” Edelgard clears her throat, cheeks red, shifting beneath her weight and _groaning._ Byleth isn't certain why until she realizes her fingers are still-- “My teacher, you are a wonderfully intelligent woman for someone so naive--are you teasing me, again?”

Edelgard is tugging her down--kissing her jaw. Her neck. Nipping at her ear--

 _Desire._ Byleth knows this word. She's read about it in books about men tearing down lands to bow at the feet of Goddesses. She's read it about tongues curling beneath gold and fingers trembling beneath the weight of it. 

She's never understood it until this look in Edelgard's eyes, not truly.

“No.”

“You honestly haven’t seen--” Edelgard's voice is low and Byleth shifts, stomach tight and thighs clenching because Edelgard is leaning down _into_ her palm, now, until fingers sink all the way to knuckles. Like she wants her to...feel her. And Byleth does. Every inch. “You don’t see the way I look at you? I didn’t...did you think this union would be...when I called you my _dearest friend_ you _do know_ I simply meant--”

Byleth purses her lips, thoughtful, _thinking_ for the first time, about how Edelgard _does_ look at her, with more than just idle recognition. “Do you want me to put back on my tights?” 

“...you _must_ be kidding. You _are._ You’re teasing me.” Edelgard falls back to the bed, that sultry voice covered with a hint of disbelief.

“No, Edelgard, I just think if you _like_ them I don’t mind--”

“I suddenly wish Rhea killed me.” It's _sighed_ , but there's a brightness in eyes when she shifts Byleth onto the sheets in her place with a _gasp_ , something wet and warm trailing down Byleth's fingers and her knuckles and her wrist. "But I suppose if she _had_ , I would lose the opportunity to repay your kindness" 

And it's now that Byleth realizes Edelgard's been waiting for _permission_ and she thinks about it for a long moment before she nods and her student--her lover--her _dearest friend_ and _wife_ \--has always been one eager to please.

Edelgard never was a fan of tradition, which might be why Byleth feels like this is their true wedding night, and tells her as much in the morning as she's dressing to slip out into sunlight to a quiet, blushing laugh. It sounds almost...giddy on her tongue, it's so at ease, and Byleth wonders if she's ever seen her quite like this.

What would this emotion be? What is the emotion that comes with...this?

“At last,” El’s teeth bite at the edge of a curving lip, fingers skimming down the lace of Byleth’s stockings in a way she seems to catch herself in, lingering along thighs, “A secret of just our own, then.” 

"Is that so?" Muscles of a thigh clench beneath wandering fingertips and Edelgard hums in the back of throat. Byleth tucks up her chin with a tilting head and a spreading smile--smaller than Edelgard’s, but wider than it used to be, by far, “I guess that means I can call you my wife.” 

It surprises her how much El’s eyes darken, but with nothing short of desire and _love,_ Byleth stepping into arms and kissing her--deep. Lingering. _Aching._

“ _Only_ yours, my Empress,” Edelgard husks against her lips, raising up off the sheets to tangle Byleth in arms and warmth and scratching fingertips, “No matter what the rumors claim.”

Hopefully it won’t shatter the rumors entirely to find Byleth Eisner, normally stalwart and impassive, leaving the Emperor’s room in the early twilight hours of morning slightly disheveled two hours later with a quiet, unshakeable smile on her lips.

So slim that it almost isn’t seen.

Hubert, of course, sees it and _sighs_ but Byleth doesn't mind the sound of it, at all.

\--

**Great Tree Moon, 1188.**

The land has been ravaged by war in a way the soil shows.

Byleth’s hand dips down into it, watching clumps of it sift through her fingertips, its texture gritty and harsh. 

There won’t be any plants that can be sewn in these fields for years...but the fires will have set into the earth, by then, and the crops pulled from the soil will be two times as valuable.

That’s what Jeralt used to say, anyways. 

_People are like plants, kid. War seems bad, now, but give it a few years and you’ll see how much the land changes them for the better, with the right fire. But you can see how bad they change, too, with the wrong one._

_A fire has to burn just right. Otherwise it will take everything with it until there’s nothing left, anymore._

What would Jeralt have said of Edelgard’s fire? 

The condensation feels thick on her tongue as she stands.

“They’re heading to Morfis. But they’re also heading towards the East.” Byleth calmly notes over her shoulder, Ferdinand leaning half over her shoulder to watch fingertips rub the soil between them.

“You can tell that from the dirt, Professor?” He looks curious, hands settled on hips as he appraises it. Say what history will about the Black Eagles, most of them were always eager to learn--even now.

“...I can tell that from the tracks breaking off at the path straight ahead. One is heading towards Morfis...and the other is heading to the East.” 

“...oh, yes. I see.” Still, there’s a curiosity in the thumb and pointer holding that cut jaw of Ferdinan von Aegir, frown steadily working its way into features like a cat slyly scratching its back upon calves uninvited calves. He likely doesn’t even know it’s there, creeping upon him, but the thoughts buried behind eyes are likely far more grave than the fluffy scratchings of a stray cat. “Can you show me, Professor?” 

Byleth watches him for a moment before nodding, feet sinking into the mud, herself, as she walks.

“It’s difficult.” She admits, bending once more to hover fingertips above mud. “These footprints are deep and even. Soldiers left them. Bandits don’t walk in even straits. The footprints heading towards the East are lighter--there’s less weight upon their backs. I would assume it’s a scouting party. You can see they met here coming from the forest--” Byleth points up towards the forest ahead, where the tracks are mingled before thinning out into the mud. Trampled tree branches and leaves scattered about the otherwise cluttered forest floor. “There’s no way to tell where the scouting party was heading without following their tracks.” 

“How do you know that the soldiers are heading to Morfis?” 

“We came from Morfis.” Byleth states simply, but at Ferdinand’s confused look, she once more stands. Eyes, however, tilt upwards towards the trees, the smallest frown of her own working shadows into the dark crevices of an ashen demon’s lips. Down-turned. Knowing. It’s been a week since she arrived with Ferdinand, their course charting north from their meeting point East of Garreg Mach to head towards his hold restored in the territory once known as Kleimann, a noble realm entrenched in the valley near the ocean. 

Morfis, the continent to the Southwest of Kleiman, has been notably silent since the start of the War. While initially Hubert had informed her that they’d assumed it was in order to politically distance themselves during volatile times, Byleth suspected trade embargoes weren’t high on their list of problems. They were a harsh desertland and because of this there was little export or import. She wasn’t as politically inclined as Edelgard--she knew nothing about the magic schools and people that Morfis sent across the continents, famed for their crest research and influence on magic use...but she understood what a town would do for survival.

So how were they surviving without support from an outside nation during the harshest Winter _and_ Summer Fódlan had ever seen--temperatures of which were likely ten-fold worse in the Western nation--without any traded goods?

How could they survive for _six years_ without assistance? It was simple: they didn’t. 

Byleth frowns, “We haven’t been able to track any game for food all week.” Calm eyes turn towards Ferdinand, who hesitates--

“You...think that’s because of the troops?” He nods, “Ah, of course--they’re loud, aren’t they?” Byleth nods in kind. “There must have been some disturbance to run off the deer in the forests and the food in the swamps. So you’re saying that even though these tracks are likely a week or two old from the way the mud dried--from when it rained last week.” A hint of warmth radiates--pride, once more, at Ferdinand, however small. He _does_ listen. “--that maybe we haven’t seen their tracks, but they’re likely heading towards Morfis based upon the lack of animals in the area?”

“Yes.” Fingertips pinch the dirt, again, watching the way it clumped. “Hmm…”

“What is it, Professor?”

“Ferdinand, what do you know about Morfis?”

“I’ve never been, but they’re a land famed for their magic-users. The Empire is known for them, as well, but the most famous schools for scholars are hidden deep in the City of Illusion.” 

“Do you know what magic does to dirt?” 

“It makes it clump.”

Byleth drops a clump of dirt in his hand, pointing towards the scout’s footsteps. 

“They’re magic users. I could procure a team of specialists to try to lift the charms on their illusions, if they’re masking their tracks. We might need to track them East.”

Byleth tilts her head upon her knuckles, looking curiously down at the path below her. 

“It’s just as likely they would use what we found to mislead us.” 

“We musn’t be disheartened, Professor. While it might appear that we are at square one, I assure you we’ve learned much tracking our foes to the outskirts.” 

“Maybe, Ferdinand.” Byleth agrees, “But we still must head further West to meet Dorothea before going to Kleiman.”

“You don’t believe they’re intercepting her, do you?”

“We can’t rule out the possibility, I guess.” Byleth shakes her head, “Hubert’s been worried we have a spy.”

“Yeah, but Hubert’s _always_ worried we have a spy.” Leonie notes from behind them, walking between the trees. “Professor--I started scouting those tracks, like you asked?” A nod. “Well...they disappear into the trees.” Leonie drops clumps of what might be weakened pebbles from her palms.

Dirt, magic seeped into the ground so deep that it pebbled the Earth before being lifted to the surface. 

“Well, Professor, it appears you were right.” 

“Kind of tired of that always being the case.” Leonie _sighs_ , lips tipping upwards in a way only exhaustion can ever attempt to muster, half-hearted and slim. “No offense. But can’t you ever be right about some _good_ stuff, for a change?” 

“The professor has been right about many positive things!” Ferdinand immediately-- _expectedly_ \--jumps to his teacher’s defense. Quite literally. In front of her until his boots sink into mud, head bouncing backwards as hair, still unkempt but likely to be _enviously_ thick by Dorothea when she _does_ arrive, fluttering in the wind behind him. “Why, she’s the one that appointed me _here_!” 

“...actually, Edelgard--” Byleth starts but Leonie cuts her off.

“Okay, seriously, _how_ do you get your hair to do that?”

"I'm getting it cut by Dorothea. The Professor says it will be more manageable and less easier to grab in the field."

"That…" Leonie nods. "...actually makes sense."

Byleth sighs.

“Leonie...I’m going to need you to go South once we meet with Dorothea. Take a small battallion of mercenaries.” 

“Professor, are you sure that’s a good idea? Do we really want to take troops away from the garrison when we’ve already had a tough time defending it?” Leonie shakes her head. 

“I need you to scout somewhere.” 

This gets Leonie’s attention. 

“If we _do_ have a spy and they know Dorothea’s coming, perhaps we should have a second outpost not too far from here to fall back towards.” Ferdinand offers and Byleth nods.

“I think that’s a good idea, Ferdinand. Head towards the mountains.” Byleth rolls out the rough map, its edges worn and canvas well-wrinkled. There were so many wrinkles in the map it might be confused for a topography, edges so well-used that they’d pill at the corners no matter how much fingertips tried to smooth out their peaks. “Settle a fallback position here,” A dirt-crusted nail points to the Southwest of Kleiman, “And here,” And once again between the mountains south of what used to be the border of Faerghus and Adrestria, West of Garreg Mach and East of the Coast. It’s still close enough to Morfis to serve as a good vantage. “And see if you can’t scout Morfis’ movements towards the East.”

“If we can figure out who is coming and going, maybe we’ll know more about who we’re dealing with.” Leonie agrees. 

“And if this outpost were to fall,” Ferdinand continues, “We will still have a place to retreat, or a place to bolster our position.”

Byleth nods. “Take Jeralt's Mercenaries, Leonie. They'll listen to you.” 

“You know…” Leonie hesitates, “I’d...prefer to stay with you, Professor. I can’t protect you if--” 

“You’ll be protecting me more if you go.” Byleth’s voice turns serious, “And don’t tell anyone else where you’re going.”

“Perhaps...we should limit communication, as well. We could still send word from the middle vantage, but keep the mountain settlement clandestine.” Ferdinand offers and after a long moment, Leonie sighs before nodding, relenting herself to the plan. And, likely, another two weeks on the road and in the sky.

“Sounds good to me.”

“We’ll all send word to Hubert.” Byleth says after a long moment. “He’ll organize communication.” 

“Alright, then I guess I have my orders. I’m kind of sad I won’t get to see Dorothea.” Leonie frowns, just a little-- _sighs_ \--before she whistles to call a Pegasus who’d settled behind a nearby tree. 

“I promise I’ll give her your well wishes, or my name isn’t Ferdinand von Aegir!” Ferdinand offers, ever-sincere, that noble smile widening as he bows.

Leonie and Byleth share a look before Leonie nods. 

“Thanks Ferdinand.” Much quieter, “...I think. Okay, I’ll send a messenger as soon as I’m out.” 

“And Leonie--” Ferdinand’s head tips up, that frown still visible. Those eyes still a little sunken. This war has taken its toll, but the war deeper in shadows even moreso. “...be careful.” 

“Will do.” 

And with that, Leonie disappears into the trees, walking alongside her pegasus to find Byleth’s battalion before likely finding a safe place to launch upwards towards her destination. 

Byleth wonders if Jeralt kept Leonie like a seed--if he planted her to let her grow. 

If be would be proud of her. 

Proud.

Brows knit as Byleth looks down at the tracks in the ground, hand hovering over them.

**Proud.**

\--

**Ethereal Moon, 1187**

"Professor…" The title had long ago become a term of endearment underneath the soft sunlight sifting through drawn curtains. Byleth will be slipping away into that sun in a few hours before the rest of the world awakes, but for now she can imagine she's sleeping like the rest of them, even though sleep finds neither of the bed's occupants very easily.

It's funny. She feels like she spent so much time sleeping, but she’s never actually rested. 

The Professor hums in acknowledgement, calmly tilting her head upwards to look up at Edelgard, whose smile rests upon her bare shoulder--whose chest lays so perfectly against the flat of her back, both of their arms tented outwards to hold cheeks as they lay on their stomachs. Byleth on the bed...and Edelgard on Byleth. 

Laying here with Edelgard feels like she’s resting upon the top of a pond on a warm, bright day. **Calm.** Like still water beneath her palms. 

“Leonie told me about Jeralt coming to her village when she was fourteen.”

Byleth nods, though the gesture is a little muffled from Edelgard’s weight, watching the caution and curiosity on her features with a small hint of curiosity of her own. Edelgard’s bare fingertips circle around the flexing muscle around Byleth’s shoulder--a seemingly absent gesture...but Edelgard doesn't _do_ absent gestures. Not really. Everything has a purpose.

This, alone, makes Byleth smile. Small. Fleeting.

“How old were you?” Edelgard’s voice is quiet and Byleth’s head barely tips to the side, honest:

“I don’t know.”

“You... _really_ don’t know how old you are?”

“No.” Byleth rolls onto her back so that she can gently guide Edelgard fully into her arms and it’s _warm_ when the other woman obliges. It again seems so thoughtless, but...it wouldn’t be. Not from Edelgard. Fingers brush through white strands of hair and watch sunlight sink into them like they do the curtains gently dancing a little overhead, fluttering in the wind. 

“Did he never tell you?”

“I guess not.” Byleth barely shrugs. “And I never thought to ask. It didn’t seem important.”

“So you never celebrated birthdays.”

“No. I...don’t think we kept much track of time.”

“You don’t remember?”

“I…” Byleth’s brows barely knit, honestly thinking on it for the first time. Something a little...strained. In her chest. Features must deepen because Edelgard’s knuckles skim down her cheek. Dip below her chin. And her breath tastes like Bergamot from their afternoon tea, shared over the desk along with soft brushes of lips just like this one. Calm. 

Her stomach clenches with something other than _calm_. 

A small breath against El’s lips. “...I guess I never paid attention.” 

Edelgard wraps an arm around her neck--her shoulders--their noses brushing as foreheads slot together and Byleth suddenly sees no reason for a comforter on the bed, at all, when such warmth could be found here. 

“So you don’t know how old you were when he...left to go to Leonie’s village? You don’t know how long he was gone?” 

“No.” Eyelashes flutter, taking in how _close_ violet is to her. “I was...as tall as his chest when he left, and I led the mercenaries.” She tries to recall. “And...I was as tall as his shoulders when he came back.”

Edelgard hums in the back of her throat, thoughtful. Byleth’s story is unique, of course. There are many in this world with fathers who leave--there are few whose fathers return. 

“You don’t talk about your days as a mercenary very often.”

“I guess not.” Byleth purses lips, head falling down to rest on the bed, watching Edelgard stretch up on strong arms above her, curiously searching the lines of her face. 

Edelgard kisses her, again. Soft. Lingering. 

“I knew we were alike.” Edelgard murmurs against her and Byleth’s fingertips trail up her hips and her back and her shoulders. Holding her close. “You’ve spent...so much of your life alone, haven’t you, Byleth?” 

Edelgard’s voice rasps against her and Byleth thinks on this emotion, for a moment: loneliness. 

Thinks of her heartbeat shattering to life in an instant--of her students. Of Jeralt. Of mercenaries. Of faces and dreams all about her. 

She thinks of green eyes that sink into her chest and fill her with such...such--

 _Sadness_ , she remembers. Loss. 

Loss.

“No.” She decides, fingers skimming through that hair to curve along Edelgard’s cheek, brows knitting as Byleth...swallows. Voice barely wavering at the edges before the emotion ebbs away into a familiar calm of fact: “Not alone. Just...by myself.”

“Sometimes you speak in the most cryptic of profound ways, my teacher.” Edelgard murmurs, but she sounds...sad, almost. Like there’s something Byleth might never understand so deeply in her eyes, when she looks at her. When she looks at the world. 

Edelgard, even surrounded by people, has spent her life alone, Byleth knows.

“El,” Byleth says, after realizing this--cupping her cheek--holding her up in the sunlight with their bodies pressed together, hidden from the world, “You’re not alone, anymore.” 

Violet blinks away a hint of what Edelgard would deny was moisture before the other woman smiles. 

“And you’re not by yourself.” 

“I think Jeralt would have been happy I gave you the ring.”

A second blink at the sudden shift, undoubtedly, and doubt is such an unusual look on those ever-careful features. “Are you sure of that, Byleth?”

Byleth thinks of a box and a ring he gave to a woman his heart never left.

“Yes.” She says simply, because she is. Quiet for a long moment before she offers, holding Edelgard closer instead of letting either of them sneak out into the sunlight. "Calm. I think...this is calm."

Calm. 

Byleth knows this emotion. She's seen it in ponds and the sky and read about it happening before storms.

She's never felt it, until Edelgard, because she never felt anything but calm, at all.

"It is, Byleth." Edelgard murmurs in agreement, shifting only to nuzzle her nose into Byleth's neck, eyes closing as arms wrap around her. Byleth can feel it. Can feel eyelashes fluttering and Edelgard's heart skipping and her breath evening. "Calm."

Calm.

She smiles.

\--

**Great Tree Moon, 1188.**

“Edie must be beside herself with worry.” Dorothea hums into her tea, Ferdinand looking curiously between the two of them, his hair pulled up into a high ponytail so that it will dry quicker in the sun. Deft hands had already spent the slim hours of the morning cutting it before the troops rose because while Ferdinand had acquiesced far better to the life of a commoner’s man, he still thought it was _improper_ for all of them to see him getting his hair sliced and diced by their foreign ambassador to Brigid. 

_‘I must look proper at_ ** _all_** _times, Dorothea! How else will they respect me?’_ _Tea kettle swinging from_ _his firm grip, hair flopping over the top of its glorious mane in its new vice of a ponytail._

‘ _You’re so...right, Ferdie! This look is much better on you. I’m sure the men will_ **_absolutely_ ** _respect you after one glance.’_

‘ _Well of course they will!’_

Dorothea arrived the night prior to a rousing hug from Ferdinand prior to _tugging_ Byleth into one, herself, whose arms tensed...prior to raising up to curl around shoulders. 

A warmth had bloomed in her chest, since then. 

She had...missed Dorothea, Byleth now knows, even with that mischievous look in familiar eyes.

“Edelgard has no need to worry. I am at the lead of the charge--she knows I am more than capable of seeing this battle to its conclusion, otherwise she would not have put Ferdinand von Aegir in--"

“That’s not what she’s going to be worried about, Ferdie.” Dorothea cuts off.

“What else could she possibly have to worry about?” Ferdie, himself, frowns.

Byleth shakes her head, knowing exactly what Dorothea is getting at.

“Is that what you’re feeling about Petra, right now?" It's a serious question, "Worry?” 

Dorothea's frown suddenly matches Ferdinand's, turning towards her professor with the smallest pout upon her lips. 

“I'm coming to realize I _really_ don’t appreciate that stare of yours, professor.”

“Is the professor staring?” Ferdinand pouts, himself, looking between the two of them. Byleth wonders if they're aware how simultaneously different and similar they are, at times, in the oddest of ways.

Only in Ferdinand’s case, his ponytail flops slightly into his eyes.

“Sorry, Dorothea.” Byleth offers, dipping a scone into her tea. Bergamot isn’t Byleth’s favorite, but it does warm her chest and tip up her lips.

How Ferdinand von Aegir managed to procure tea at the head of a battle front was anyone’s guess, but Dorothea and Byleth knew better than to ask. 

“This is a good cup of tea, Ferdinand.” Byleth offers, instead--a tactical diversion--and the General bolsters shoulders at the praise. 

“It’s important to devote time and energy to keeping morale high.” Ferdinand nods and Dorothea rolls her eyes above a steaming cup. 

“Of course it is, Ferdie. You have to keep up those noble standards.” Begrudgingly, after a moment, she sighs into her cup, murmuring into its secure, warm depths, “...this _is_ a pretty good cup of tea.” 

Ferdinand beams. 

Not an hour later, Ferdinand’s far more manageable hair is laid down upon his shoulders as they stand upon a map in Byleth’s tent.

“...so the plague has gotten that bad?” Dorothea’s voice holds a certain weight to it--a knowledge of what it might be like to not afford medicine, or care; an empathy not likely found from most nobles towards commoners, but one that a commoner finds towards nobles who hold crests. 

Byleth wonders what it must be like to have a heart as big as Dorothea's at times--so much larger than herself.

“There’s no known cure.” Ferdinand pushes hair behind ears, looking down at the map, “And no visible pattern amongst its victims. Initially, we had assumed that it had only been those who supported Edelgard, but it seems…” He shifts--frowns.

“They’re targeting everyone.” Byleth calmly supplies.

Ferdinand nods, “It’s...starting to cause rumors among the nobility that Edelgard isn’t trying to cause a reformation, but is trying to eradicate crests _completely_. They’re starting to call the plague the Adrestrian genocide.” 

“But only three people have died--”

“Twenty-two.” Byleth shakes her head. “Only three publicly.” 

Dorothea pales, hand hovering over Brigid. “I can’t believe this.” 

“The rumors are being appeased with the ones of Edelgard’s engagement to the crowned prince of Morfis’ City of Illusion--” Ferdinand shakes out his hair, sighing down at the board, and Byleth can feel Dorothea’s eyes settle firmly upon her. “But there’s no denying that troops are being mobilized from Morfis and _to_ Morfis for... _some_ kind of organized attack on Enbarr.” 

“You think that... _Their_ presence is in Morfis?” 

“Yes.” Byleth offers, pointing to one pin mark, unnamed, ahead of their position. Where Ferdinand and herself had camped two days prior, on their way to Dorothea from Garreg Mach. “We found tracks here heading both to Morfis and East.”

“We cannot rule out the possibility that they’re mobilizing against Enbarr. Or...heading towards Garreg Mach, or our strongholds in the East.” 

“So why are we still in Kleiman?” Dorothea’s voice only quivers a little at the edges before it strengthens into steel, a determination that’s been tempered through years of war and _devotion_. 

“Because I think the Slithers have a bigger goal.” Byleth offers after Ferdinand looks her way, “They’re going to attack _all_ of the territories with the plague so that they’re weakened before attacking from Morfis.” 

Dorothea pauses, looking down at the map. Her hand knowingly hovers over an island far smaller than Fódlan to the Southwest, so many yalms away from her, now. Ferdinand reaches out and gently curls fingers around her wrist, brows barely furrowing in understanding. 

They leave what would happen to Brigid were the land to be invaded by Morfis unsaid. Some things are better that way. 

"So these pins are…"

Byleth nods, fingers skirting over the red pins pressed into strategic locations throughout Fódlan. "These are our vantage points where we'll gather our troops to launch an offensive attack before they can reach Enbarr."

"But don't...don't all of these Garrisons--" 

"Surround Garreg Mach." Ferdinand nods. "They're working on curing the plague in Enbarr, and if it worsens in Hyrm…"

"Then we'll have an outpost in Leicester ready to start treating them." Dorothea realizes.

Byleth doesn't mention that Edelgard, herself, has planned on going, but there's far more keeping them from pushing towards Hyrm.

"Hubert has been arranging scholars without crests to head to the capital. And we do still need to secure Kleiman. The attacks on the fortress have become more and more apparent. It might take months to route out the rebellion, at this rate."

"There's more." Byleth notes and Ferdinand's brows knit.

"There is?"

"Yes." Byleth picks up another pin and places it right on Hyrm, black. "Part of the reason we're here is because we believe there _is_ a spy in one of your convoys. Hubert is…" Byleth's chin rests upon knuckles, head barely nodding, "Expecting there to be an attack either here or in Hyrm. If it's here, then we'll know not only which of your convoys holds the spy, but that their true intent isn't to spread the plague."

"Why...would they attack here?"

"All of us are here." Byleth says simply. Bluntly. "All of us are important to Edelgard and Dorothea is also important to Brigid."

"We're... bait?" Ferdinand realizes.

Dorothea gasps, hand raising up to her chest and then her lips. "That...that does sound like Hubie, doesn't it?"

"No." Byleth shakes her head. "The reason why I had Leonie scout out two fallbacks is so that both of you can retreat towards them and head off a force if Kleiman _does_ fall."

"What?" Ferdinand's brows knit.

Byleth looks down at the map.

 _I_ **_hate_ ** _this, Byleth--_

" _You're_ bait." Dorothea's hand lowers.

Both students look appalled in Byleth's direction in silence, waiting for her to agree or disagree about the assumption as she stares. And then, ultimately, nods.

"Professor, we can't--"

"I can't let you--"

And the professor shakes her head in response.

Dorothea steps forward. "You've... you've made up your mind about this. Does Edie even...does she _know_ you're--" 

A nod. Dorothea's head bows as her fingers twine and clasp and unclasp, again, in her lap.

There's silence for a long moment before Ferdinand steps forward, "Well I won't let you stay here by yourself, Professor. It simply wouldn't be honorable." 

"Right. What Ferdie said. Also, I'm pretty sure Edie would kill us if something happened to you." 

"While I wouldn't go _that_ far, Dorothea, I do believe you have a point. Edelgard would certainly be devastated at your loss, Professor."

"We know it. We've _seen_ it." Dorothea steps a little closer, those twining hands settled in themselves between them, and smiles. "And so would we."

"Of course."

Byleth looks between both of them, quiet for a long moment, this...this feeling she still doesn't understand rising up within her. It feels like too many things and Byleth feels like not enough of them, at all. 

"...alright." She says simply, "But if I'm right and we're the first stop on the siege…"

"We'll be yours to command, Professor." 

Ferdinand clasps her hand and Dorothea smiles and Byleth...smiles back before she nods. 

"Then let's head North."

A rallying cry of two sounds throughout the tent, but across all of Fódlan, Byleth knows all of the Black Eagles would rally alongside them, Edelgard at the front.

Byleth right behind her.

A box can hold many things. Stones and branches and so much love it can wrap around the jostling contents inside like cloth and keep them safe as they rattle around the inside of a makeshift bag, hopping over trees and wading through swamps and breaking lances with the tip of a scuffed, scratched boot the color of dried blood and still ale.

It's not so hard to carry things from camp to camp to camp, she thinks, thumb smoothing down the center of a dagger, campfire heating up her shoulders as she takes in the night stars, eyes closing. Breath evening into something calm.

It's not hard to carry them when they're all in a box.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also: thank you all for letting me know it's not a dead fandom. This has made me extraordinarily happy :')
> 
> (And gives me an excuse to shamelessly post more fic sO)
> 
> Prompts/requests: [ Tumblr ](https://notoriousjae.tumblr.com)


	3. A Cloak

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **_Hmm...most curious. You can feel it, can you not? You can feel it coming._ **
> 
> **_You can feel the change of time--_**
> 
> **__We felt this, before--_   
>  **  
>  _We felt this. With Jeralt._   
>  ** _ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter is ridiculously long. I could have cut it in two, probs, but I didn't want to ruin the theme. 
> 
> Also this chapter is inappropriate. Nsfw and violence. So do with that what you will. There is a battle section near the end of this chapter, but given that's not the focus of this story you can likely skip most of it until the end of the chapter if that's not your cuppa.
> 
> Hell put a tl;dr in a comment and I'll give you the mystery science theater version.
> 
> Anyone who thinks Dorothea is not simultaneous besties with Byleth and Edelgard can fight me
> 
> Please let me know what you think at the end!

**_Horsebow Moon, 1188._ **

The black of a cloak draws tighter around Byleth’s shoulders, chill from the sea air dancing down her spine like that false Goddess might--light and carefree. It’s...not quite cold, but the feeling of it bothers her more than it used to--or maybe just _now,_ a world where skin can feel warm without a constant chill beneath its thin ice. 

The small bundle of bones--full of husks and tree trunks and wood--that comprised the little Ashen Demon was as tall as the Bladebreaker’s knees when a cloak was first wrapped around shoulders. 

After he stopped picking her up from the mud, Byleth would grow cold, so far from Jeralt’s side. He had laughed to her, once, voice full of bright sunlight and whiskey as it recalled a small little squirrel of a girl shivering in the middle of a barren tent despite the fire roaring outside. Far away from the rest.

_You were always such a loner, kid--_

So Jeralt found her a cloak and stitched the tears in it himself from the thin fiber of a cactus plant from Morfis he bought from a trader whose eyes were always sunken and hair was always up and who they saw frequently because she always gave the best deals to Jeralt, though Byleth, then, hadn't understood why. Similar to how she never understood why she always unbuttoned two rings on her blouse before Jeralt came to her shop.

_It’s more utilitarian that way--_

The merchant woman would coo everytime a band of mercenaries scrambled about her cart--whatever that meant, utilitarian--bunching up Byleth’s unruly matts of blue in fussy palms in a vain attempt to tie it upwards, large, gussed lips barely tugging downwards, themselves, in a scowl. 

_But mostly it just_ **_looks_ ** _better. You want boys to see your eyes, don't you?_

The tie would always fall out, and Byleth never bothered putting it up, herself. She preferred not bothering--it seemed more useful to always be able to be ready to enter battle, no matter the state of something as pointless as hair. One day, when she was nearly as tall as Jeralt’s flask her hand shot out calmly--precisely--to curve unyielding fingers about the merchant’s wrist high above her, cloak tied around shoulders and a box safely tucked inside.

She hadn’t worn it like a coat, then, but as a bag.

_Stop._

Byleth ordered--even and calm, fingers curled about a quick pulse--and the woman’s eyes widened a little in fear, like most people’s did. Byleth’s head had barely tipped to the side. 

_Children shouldn’t be like that, Jeralt_ , the merchant trembled and hissed and quivered, then, and Byleth doesn’t think she ever saw the woman, again.

She didn't see Jeralt much, either.

But she didn’t need either of them when she had her cloak.

The cloak’s arms were too wide and the black fabric hung too low and it dragged when she walked, but Byleth learned to wash it from Matias, who also taught her how to use it like a bag, tied about her back, so that she could carry many things for herself. More things than she could ever carry in her arms, which would get tired, sometimes, even though she never thought to voice the complaint.

So...somewhere along the way in time, she lost the fussy woman and lost Matias and lost Jeralt but kept a box and kept a cloak and kept seeds close to her chest.

Ansmer looked at her one day, cuts lining the pale moon of shoulders as she guided them back to camp at the front, Jeralt long gone and the wind howling through unbound hair.

She led them, while Jeralt was gone. 

_Wear it like us--like we’re a shield on your back, kid. You don't need shields, when you've got us._

There’s...an emotion at the memory. Maybe she’ll write to Edelgard and ask her what it is. What all of it is. But in the meantime, eyes close as the wind curves beneath the cloak, tail billowing beneath it.

"Professor--"

It's a week before it happens that it comes, South of Kleiman.

The letter is tattered by the time it reaches the encampment from a weary messenger, whose knees quake from the cold, Emperor’s red Eagle clawing from the ashes of its red wax stamped to seal the envelope, blood hue dully gleaming in the light of their battered fire, wearily thrown together by exhausted soldiers who haven’t slept well in weeks, if not months.

Byleth’s fingers ache, cut and scabbed, as she opens the flap with her nail.

The bandit assaults on Kleiman have been worse than expected and it’s become clear that they’re not truly bandits, at all, even though that part _was_ expected. 

Byleth has a stack of letters from former students--Ingrid in Nuvelle, sitting on the coast East of Brigid and South of Albinea and Morfis’ Northern territory; Leonie, now, outside of Mateus, pushing towards the mountains; Sylvain in Gautier, bordering Sreng--the list goes on of all of her students imbedded in territories on the border of neighboring factions and countries. All of them facing volatile conditions from bandits--all of them thinly escaping or bolstering their forces thanks to an inexplicable rolling fog that’s taken over Fódlan--and all of them slowly overcome with the plague. 

The plague had started near Hrym in the Adrestrian Empire before spreading upwards towards Ordelia in what used to be known as Leicester, both towns bordering the coast where the southern territory of Morfis sits. Its symptoms came mild, at first, if startling. 

A cough--a sneeze--each limb contracting one by one until the sweats gave way to a startling paralysis. The paralysis started in the shoulders first (unusual, stated Manuela, who recounted countless plagues that started in the hands and feet, appendages far away from people’s _regularly_ beating hearts), but this one started in the shoulders before spreading to the elbows...the knees. The ankles. The wrists. The neck, where swallowing became difficult. 

Then the chest, but the heart always remained pattering away, frantic--elevated. _Frightened_. 

_‘If it’s blood, why is it starting in the joints?’ Linhardt, circles buried deep beneath eyes far darker than usual, scratches at his chin._

_‘Autopsy them.’ Edelgard’s voice held no waver, ‘If we cannot find the solution with_ **_magic_ ** _\--’_

_‘Autopsies were...forbidden by the church--’ Manuela tries to explain, the thought seemingly startling. Unnerving._

_‘I mean this with the most respect, Manuela, but then I’ll find someone capable of doing them. Of which I know you are, so I’m uncertain why you hesitate.’ Edelgard tossed down the papers on the table containing the list of crest-bearers. ‘These are not just nobles, these are_ **_war-decorated_ ** _men and women with experience. Society might have put them in favorable positions unjustly, but they were in them all the same. Targeting those with crests not only undermines our goals, it takes away our very valuable allies and our most_ **_decorated_ ** _and_ **_experienced_ ** _soldiers.’_

_‘I agree, Lady Edelgard.’ Hubert, paler than usual, pushes fingers through dark hair, sweaty strands clinging to his forehead and neck, a little longer, now, than it had been months prior. ‘We must see the larger picture of the fallout from this insidious attack.’ Shoulders before sliding up gloves. Neither Edelgard or Hubert like showing their hands, literally or metaphorically._

_‘Hubert--’ Surprisingly, it’s Linhardt who speaks, shifting upwards, ‘You should be resting after your trip to Arundel. We’re still not sure whether what afflicted you was--’_

_‘I’m fine. We’re well aware that the plague is not airborne and that I have no crest--’_

_‘But exhaustion is contagious, and it’s real exhausting looking at you, man. Why don’t you rest?’ Caspar steps around the small table and Byleth steps next to him, ignoring the concern thick in the room, hand barely skirting over his shoulder._

_Hubert, tellingly, does not shy or glower from the touch._

_‘Your insight is invaluable, Hubert.’ Edelgard quiets from the helm of the room, ‘But your recovery even more so.’_

_Byleth is well aware of what the look the Emperor sends her means, however fleeting, and she becomes the shadow of a shadow, just for a moment._

_He bows deeply before calmly striding outside of the room and Byleth just as calmly catches him before he can stumble outside of the door of the war room, holding him up against the stone before wrapping a weak arm about her shoulder. It seems like all great, boisterous things, he could only bluff quite so long on his battlefield._

_‘You’re...always so rebellious, Professor.’ It’s a huff through nostrils, exhaustion seeming to settle upon him like a sack of rocks as she carries him towards her room, not his own. She would rather not amble him up dozens of steps, for both their sakes. ‘You’re not supposed to be so close.’_

_A shrug. “This isn’t the first time you’ve called me rebellious.”_

_A slim smile is her reward, staying in the shadows within the shining grass of the church grounds._

_‘I suppose so.’_

_'Have I ever listened?'_

_'Not that I can recall. And your...preposterous disposition is infecting Lady Edelgard like this plague.'_

_Byleth is certain Lady Edelgard would say that’s a victory._

_It’s not long until he's settled in her bed with little remark or protest, which weighs more than anything else might._

_‘You don’t want me to tell Ferdinand?’ Byleth has never felt quite so tall as she does now, towering over this unusually hunched form and she leans down, a gleam of green warming her palm as it settles on his forehead, the smallest calm she can offer._

_Hubert is quiet for a long moment, eyes closing before he mumbles, ‘The fool wouldn’t be able to concentrate. He seems to think...our friendship is more important...than...--"_

_A chill runs up his curved spine, shoulders stiff._

_So Byleth covers him with the scratchy, blue blanket in the corner before closing the door, but doesn't leave. And hesitates, only for a moment, before laying the black of a cloak upon him, as well, settling wordlessly on the floor and splaying out a well worn map upon its stone, slowly charting a path._

_It’s an hour before the door creaks open._

_'He wouldn't want me to see him like this. It feels...selfish to rob him of his pride.' Edelgard's voice is quiet, feet bare as she comes into the room, boots settled familiarly by the open archway. Her walk is quieter than it had been when Byleth first started teaching her._

_'He did the same to you a few weeks ago when you arrived from Arundel.'_

_'He's done the same to me since we were children.' She sits upon the bed, hand hovering over his shoulder. 'I don't know what I'll do without my shadow.'_

_'Perhaps…' Hubert's voice scratches, eyes slivered open, no small amount of fondness in the serious depths. And no small amount of exhaustion. There must be, if he's letting Edelgard see him like this willingly. 'You'll adapt to the light.'_

_'Or perhaps this will only be momentary--perhaps we'll cure you.'_

_'Do not...waste your attention on me, Lady Edelgard.'_

_'That's easier said than done, Hubert.' Edelgard runs a thumb over his wrist where a surgical incision rests, sighing at its pale shimmer like a fishline barely seen in the light. The remnants of a symbol burn against his white skin. It’s telling he allows Edelgard’s thumb to remain. 'Easier said than done. Sleep, consider that a command if it will force you to do so.' That weak hand slackens in hers despite visible effort, disappearing into a rumbled pile of blue blanket and black cloak._

_When he's asleep long enough that they're certain he won't wake, the taller of the two left standing steps closer._

_'Manuela will do the autopsies.' Byleth’s hands gently curve over shoulders, guiding Edelgard back against her. ‘And Hanneman will handle this.’_

_‘I wish he had told me.’ Edelgard hasn’t looked from Hubert’s prone form, ‘He always attempts to strike from the shadows, even if I’m not aware of it.’_

_‘It makes him a poor vassal, but a good friend, El.’ Byleth reminds, feeling the way Edelgard barely shakes against her._

_'He would call anyone else but himself a fool for doing this.'_

_Byleth nods, Edelgard's chin dipping barely up and over her shoulder to search drawn features._

_‘Does Hanneman still believe that your blood--’_

Byleth looks up at the faint rustle from the tent nearby, drawn from wayward thoughts and one line of elegant cursive, in particular, by a grumbling gruff of a normally smooth voice.

"Edelgard did not send me a second missive." Ferdinand's lips purse and Dorothea seems to have taken a lesson from Hapi, because her sigh might summon demonic beasts it's so great and heavy before it disappears into the cold, still air.

"Ferdinand," Byleth is reminded by what Dorothea’s stated, once, about nobles and balls, her tone cloyingly sweet as fingers tent in front of her stomach, a flicker of a smile twitching up Byleth’s lips as she slips the letter into a small pocket surrounding the sharp tip of a knife. It rests upon many there, collected and cherished. Maybe Byleth’s muscles are made of chiseled wood, these days, "You're hopeless." 

“I don’t understand--”

“I know you don’t, Ferdie. Why don’t we all go into the war tent and have some more tea? You can pout about not having a second letter from Edelgard, there.” She shoos his shoulders forward with a stolen look to Byleth the moment Ferdinand von Aegir’s back is turned, and the teacher’s smile returns.

Gentler. 

The wind brushes through Byleth’s hair as they disappear behind the white tent flap stained with soot and blood and war from these past months. She’s not particularly good at counting time, but the calendar Dorothea keeps track of, coupled with Edelgard’s letters, inform her that it’s been nearly six full moons since a dagger was slipped into her palm and light caught the glint of red hanging about the Emperor’s neck, vial safely against her heart.

_'Experimenting like this...does this make us any better than those we fight, My Teacher?' Familiar features have drawn further and further in on themselves in the moonlight like a taut bowstring ready to snap along thin lips._

_'No, Edelgard.' Byleth decides, honest, 'It doesn't. But…' A beat, chin tipping upwards as she thinks, 'We're different in one important way.'_

_'What is that, Professor?' Edelgard clings to her hand like a girl might wrap fingers in the things that bind her to a table._

_They both look at Hubert, his shoulders stiff and body curled in the dwarfing sheets of a scratchy blue blanket, a box tipped open by his head, contents barely visible underneath the night’s glow._

_Byleth turns her nose into Edelgard's jaw and feels that taut string snap in a tremble beneath her._

_'Choice.'_

Byleth’s palm presses idly at her chest before following behind the pair, watching the sun high above the rickety guard tower, its wood weakened by salt and ocean and fire, sieges relentless. 

For a moment she imagines Sothis--how her lips might dance like the wind and fingertips might curl beneath a jaw. 

**_Hmm...most curious. You can feel it, can you not? You can feel it coming._ **

Her hand flattens over the flap, brows knitting as her other palm raises to roll against her chest--over her heart, like trying to rub a spot away--no Edelgard to keep her from bruising it. 

As if drawn there, eyes settle upon the near shoreline, that furrow of her brow only deepening. _Drawn_ there. Like...eyes don’t want to tear from it. Like the feeling she used to get when she was shorter and frailer and less full of rhythmic, distracting drums in her chest--that feeling of something watching her from the shadows. Like eyes might track her, and her hands would curl around the knife by her hip when Jeralt was no longer there to ease white knuckles from their grip. 

Now they only rest over her heart.

**_You can feel the change of time--_ **

The lake that feeds into the ocean is visible from their outpost, and in the distance rolls a great fog off of the water, brought from the cold air meeting the heat from the West. The wind dances along the pond, pushing it out towards the fog that’s coming in, heading their way.

Something about it--

Byleth frowns, looking down at the sand beneath her feet and the horizon, once more, before pushing aside the flap and nodding towards Ferdinand’s steady hand and the cup contained within it. She shakes off a clump of sand from her boot.

**_We felt this, before--_ **

Byleth’s head tips up to the side, expecting to see a flash of green, just for--

**_We felt this. With Jeralt._ **

“Are you alright, Professor?” Dorothea’s paused mid-sip, concern twisting brows as Ferdinand lowers his cup. 

Just the wind follows Byleth into the tent as the flap closes behind her.

She shakes her head.

Everything is...fine.

_\--_

_Guardian Moon, 1187_.

The din of the ball is muffled by the large double doors leading into one of Enbarr’s great hallways. 

Where the halls of Garreg Mach are vast and full of stone, their stoic browns are natural and reminiscent of the great valleys of mountains on which the proud building stands tall. Enbarr, however, is reminiscent of _steel._ It’s full of dark stone and the red fires that temper it, long windows surrounded by curtains soaked in the blood the empire had lost throughout the millenia it had stood proud.

Whereas Garreg Mach might resemble the mountain carved by the hand of the Goddess, Enbarr resembles the steel carved by her Children. Swords and axes and spears held proud and _tall_. 

It’s not as cold as the halls of Garreg Mach, the great rooms here warmed by several hearths throughout, no air streaming through the windows, and the heat of the building does an admirable job of keeping the snow outside from entering. It’s not sterile like a blade, either, though Edelgard frequently recalled it being that way.

‘ _But perhaps it was just the company I was with in my youth.’ El dryly hums, arms crossed as Arundel settled next to her shoulder with a tall, unwavering stance. Calm and regal, himself, as his black cloak blended with the shadows cast from the fire that lightens Edelgard’s chin in flickers of ember._

_‘Ah, yes, I suppose you didn’t spend much time in our great capital, did you, Edelgard? What a shame. I find its presence quite...’ A devilish hum, ‘Familiar and soothing. But I suppose it runs in the family. I don’t think your mother spent much time here, either.’_

_Byleth leans forward to untuck the crystal glass white gloves curl so tightly around, regardless of the calm, pressed lips of the Emperor between them, replacing it with her full glass._

_‘How dutiful.’ Arundel drawls._

_‘Uncle, would you please get the Professor more wine? It seems her glass has run dry. We wouldn't want to be rude.'_

_Arundel’s calm smile twitches a little at the edge before he_ **_bows_ ** _, a little too deep, disappearing into the crowd. Edelgard hands her back her wine._

_‘I don’t like being...inebriated.’ Violet follows him into the crowd and Byleth’s fingers, just for a moment, curl around Edelgard’s wrist as she once more retrieves her glass, ‘Not around him.’_

_After a long moment of thought, the Tactician looks around the room before leaning over and pouring a bit into the plant behind them and handing the glass back up towards gloved fingers, drink significantly depleted, but not quite gone._

_‘Is that how you got all the plants to grow in the Greenhouse?’ There’s a hint of amusement curling Edelgard’s lips, but no denying that_ **_look_ ** _she gives her, ever-confident as she wraps her hand around the glass._

_Byleth shrugs. Serious: ‘I did tell you that a Mercenary with a beard down to his knees taught me how to garden, didn’t I?’_

_Edelgard, for all of her composure and political forte, doesn’t hide her laugh._

_And Byleth, not nearly as worried about all the eyes that turn upon them, Arundel’s included, simply smiles._

“Are you enjoying the wedding?” The question is humming in Byleth’s ear, only a sip gone from a wine glass as Edelgard slides up next to her amidst the thrumming crowd of dancing nobles. They’re all polite--it’s hardly like any of the weddings Byleth’s been to in villages, where ale ran into the river and dancing livened up the valleys, the sort of detached thing Byleth could appreciate--and while all of them are still drunk, they’re far more…

What was the word Dorothea had used, once, grumbling behind Ferdinand as she took a long, long sip of her own cup?

 _Snobby_ about it. Kind of _jerks._

(Dorothea has slyly insinuated many times that if she _hadn't_ known how to work a room full of snobby jerks, she wouldn't have succeeded in the opera and Byleth has come to believe her).

The dancing is a show--elegant and _regal_ \--people poised despite inebriation as they clasp hands and spin about the room, and Byleth’s head tilts to the side, brows knit. 

“Is _anyone_ here?” It’s a genuine question, looking from forced smile to forced smile, and the line of men Edelgard’s been strong-armed into dancing with for _political relations_ across the hall, all of which look sorely _displeased_ that the Emperor has slipped away to speak to her Advisor. 

“No.” Edelgard hums, “But events aren’t for enjoyment according to nobles, they’re for _status_ . These are masqueraded business affairs--women being married off to the highest bidder and kingdom, usually.” And Edelgard leans just a little _closer_ before she seems to pause and straighten, putting the smallest amount of distance between them. 

It feels a little colder, despite the large hearth behind them. Byleth turns downwards and watches the way the fire curves about Edelgard’s sighing chin. 

“When I’m...married,” Edelgard says it so calmly, watching the groups of nobles spin about the floor, not looking up towards Byleth, at all, who finds it far more interesting to watch Edelgard. “It’s not going to be like this.” 

“Okay.” It’s a simple statement, finally turning to take in the elegant, swaying dancers on the large marble floor. 

“I know I’ve stated I’ll have two weddings, but I only want **one** \--a true...honest one, with real dancing and laughter and people I actually _know_. The whole continent can celebrate, but I think it’s time I set a precedent.” 

"And what is that?" Byleth nods, watching Petra move elegantly about the floor and Dorothea laugh amidst a group of charmed men. "Your precedent?"

"That marriage doesn't have to be about status or convenience, and that a partnership should be with someone you trust and respect. And _because_ of that," Arundel turns away for a moment from watching them and Edelgard hands Byleth her glass, who dutifully immediately takes a much larger sip than the Emperor had, nearly downing the contents before handing it back. Alcohol doesn't particularly affect her. Though this is…nice wine. It would go even better if they'd finally serve dinner. The dinner would be nicer. Byleth doesn’t miss Dorothea’s hiked eyebrow across the path as she hands back the glass, though Edelgard doesn’t miss a beat, “It should be _fun_."

A thoughtful look.

“You could always have it in the woods.” Byleth offers. 

“Oh, the rustic solution. Tell me more, Professor.” 

“There's always fun in the woods. I know a group of mercenaries that would be happy to dance with you.” 

Edelgard leans closer, their shoulders brushing, “There’s only one mercenary I see the point in dancing with."

“Leonie’s going to be hurt.” Byleth frowns but a hint of a smile might break through at the unamused look on Edelgard’s face...and the small twinkle in her eyes. 

“Clearly she was the one I was speaking of, originally. So there’s no reason for her to feel dismayed." Edelgard’s lips twitch upwards. In this, she does miss a beat before continuing, “...Byleth, would you care to d--”

“Lady Edelgard,” The conversation is interrupted abruptly by the smooth voice of a man who’s spent his whole life hearing the sound of it, bowing deeply before them. “Pardon me for interrupting, but I could not help but become...opportunistic when the sight of you without an escort struck. Would you care to dance?”

The magical tattoo emblazoned into his flexing bicep, dipped deeply in front of them, is the symbol of the City of Illusion. Not too far away, Arundel smiles, and Byleth knowingly reaches over to hold Edelgard’s drink. 

It's no surprise the Prince has been sent after Edelgard's glass has finished.

“Ah, it would be my absolute _pleasure_ , Lord Anri.” That guarded tone, lips curling upwards in pleasant civility as Edelgard takes a bowed hand. The only suitor that’s dared to interrupt them, although Edelgard has been dancing with them all night. “If you’ll excuse me, Professor?” 

Byleth, calm, simply nods and watches the tense way Edelgard’s shoulders roll backwards into ivory skin--the way her head barely dips before it straightens. The way she enters onto a battlefield Byleth cannot follow, but Byleth isn't about to leave Edelgard alone upon it, sighing down at two empty drinks. 

This feeling is...new.

And that’s how she seems to spend the next five dances, alternating between watching Edelgard dance, tense, and staring at the empty shine of crystal in her palm.

"If you're about to make wine appear in those glasses, I should have paid more attention in your Reasoning lectures, Professor." That voice is calm and teasing--perfectly lilted at the edge. _Charming._

But Dorothea always is.

"You can't transmogrify something that doesn't already exist in the environment." Byleth replies, chin tipping upwards to take in that light tip of lips, shoulders of a dress dipped down below biceps. "Unless you believe it's there."

"Ah, so are you going to _Seraphim_ wine into the glass?" Dorothea's coy, but there's a genuine curiosity there as she leans towards her Professor. 

Byleth's chin dips as she stares at the small crystal, turning it in her thumb curiously. She no longer has great powers over time, but she _could_ turn it backwards to when she never drank the wine, at all, once. Does that mean the wine is there, in some form? Waiting for Byleth to pull it from the air it's trapped in.

Could she create something out of air, if the air had been something else, before?

Is that all time is--the space where things had been, and the places they no longer are?

Does it really matter? She's not Linhardt and only has a passing curiosity for academic pursuits, not a passion researching them.

A long hum. Serious, knit brows furrowing as she takes in the sight of her once-student.

"...why would I do that when I can just get another glass?"

"So that someone like myself doesn’t have to go through the trouble of refilling it in order to appear polite?" Dorothea teases, "I would hate not to be polite."

"Edelgard says that's why we have Arundel." Byleth finishes El's glass before setting it to the side. 

"And...what does Edie say about dancing with all of these strapping, mindless men who are throwing themselves about our Emperor's feet?"

Byleth has picked up her glass, as well, thumb running along the edge of it, watching Edelgard twirl around the room. 

"She says she doesn't want her wedding to be like this."

"Is that so?"

"Yes, I think she's having it in the woods." 

"Oh, there’s a thought. I think Edie is getting as fed up with pompous affairs as the rest of us. Does," Dorothea's smile curves around the edge of her glass, "Edie talk about her dream wedding with you often, Professor?"

"Often, I guess."

"You guess?" 

"How often do you talk about weddings?" A curious question and Dorothea shifts. "I don't have anything to compare it to."

"Often enough for a girl needing to marry."

"I don't think you need to marry, Dorothea." Byleth shakes her head, "Edelgard wants to change nobility."

"...she already has." Dorothea sounds fond and...awed and a little small. 

"Then you don't need to marry someone you don't love. Both you and Ingrid have made names of your own in the Empire. Ingrid has finally become a knight, why do you still want to marry?"

"I...am a little taken off guard because I didn't expect this subject to turn on me." Dorothea bashfully admits, tucking up her own glass of wine. "I thought I was going to tease you over Edelgard."

"Why would you tease me over Edelgard?"

"Because you've been watching her dance with wedding suitors all night when you should be dancing with her, instead."

There's something about the statement that makes Byleth pause. That makes her brows knit and deepen and her chest...ache. That makes her look up at Edelgard, smiling falsely and charmingly, and...frown.

"...I don't know how to dance." Byleth admits.

"Is that all? I can show you. You can dance with me, and then Edie. And then we can all stop talking about who she _might_ choose she's going to marry."

"She knows who she's going to marry." Byleth mindlessly supplies, still watching her swirl about, their eyes meeting. And Edelgard visibly hesitates. There must be something about the look on Byleth's face. About the way her thumb curls around the glass and her breath catches painfully in her throat and her--

Byleth idly reaches up to rub her palm against her chest, above that thumping thing. A little annoyed.

She wants it to _stop._ Sometimes these feelings are...distracting.

"What?" Dorothea might blink or gasp. "Who is she going to mar--Professor?"

"I'm sorry Dorothea, I don't...I actually don't feel well." And she doesn't.

"Professor, you always feel well, are you alright? I didn't…" And Dorothea is quietly sincere, coyness falling aside, "I didn't mean to hurt you. I mean...bring up--I didn’t mean to be insensitive. But I can't just sit by."

"I'll be fine. It's the wine." It's not the wine. "...It's not the wine."

"Oh, of course it’s not the wine.” It’s sighed with what must be a _suffocating_ swell of air into her lungs, brows knitting in sympathy like she’s in a very, very tragic opera, “It's your emotions. Are you repressing them?"

"What?"

"Oh, Goddess, Professor. So...you're just...you're going to _let_ her?"

"Let her what?" Byleth's features contort with confusion, distracted, rubbing at that burning chest like she's been punched above her breast. Idly, she’s regretting not suggesting they just imprison a large dragon instead of slaying it--the repercussions are _annoying._ "What are you talking about, Dorothea?" 

"Marry."

"Why wouldn't I let Edelgard marry?"

" **_What_ ** _?"_

"Whether or not Edelgard marries isn't my choice. It's no one's but Edelgard's."

"What is my choice?"

Edelgard seems to appear through the crowd like she’s been summoned--or maybe, for once, Byleth has simply been too distracted to watch her. 

"Edie!" Dorothea blanches, just a little. "Just--"

"Whether you marry." Byleth supplies, palm pressing a little harder, rubbing at her chest, brows still knit. 

"Oh.” Edelgard looks between them both--fittingly _pointed_ for both of them--before settling on Byleth. “That’s not exactly what I expected but, I’m glad you _both_ agree that I have some agency in my-- _Byleth_.” And her voice lowers a little--dusts like a stone skipping over the top of a lake. "What are you doing?"

Byleth looks up, still distracted, to see she has Edelgard’s full attention, nothing short of concern pressing lips thin. Her hand pauses its rubbing, looking down with curious eyes to see Edelgard’s wrapped her left hand around her wrist, stilling it. 

Byleth lingers on the sight of it, feeling the hidden press of a ring above her heartbeat. 

It doesn't do much to calm her, but it does make an effort.

“Are you alright?” El’s voice has dropped to a whisper--sincere and quiet despite the dance floating around them, idle chatter and forced laughter, and Dorothea, who watches with baited breath every second that ticks by. 

“I’m...fine, I think.” Byleth turns away from her, not sure why that feeling... _spikes_ at the sight of concern so deep in eyes. "Maybe it’s the wine." She tries for a second time and then frowns. Immediately shaking her head, "No, no, it's not the wine."

"Are you sure you’re--" Dorothea sounds gentler now and both of her once students do a valiant job of covering Byleth from the crowd around them, features contorted and hand curling above an aching chest.

"I'm fine."

“You’ve never given me cause to doubt you.” But Edelgard is looking like she’s doubting her, now, thumb barely smoothing along Byleth’s quick pulse in a way that makes her mouth feel...dry. 

Fingers flex tightly underneath Edelgard’s hand, muscles taut and wound so thoroughly that the Emperor can undoubtedly feel it flex in her wrist. 

“I...think the Professor just drank too quickly. That's why she sounds so...confused. About _whether_ she drank quickly.” Dorothea swoops between them, hand reaching up to settle on a cloaked bicep, gently tugging Byleth away from Edelgard’s grounding touch and she’s...startled to feel a hint of _relief_. 

This only causes the confusion to burrow deeper. 

She never feels relief, being away from Edelgard. 

All of them know wine doesn’t affect her, but when Byleth doesn’t protest, instead looking curiously down at the palm that had refused to rub her emotions away, Edelgard looks down towards feet and nods. 

“Yes, of course. Why don’t you get some air with Dorothea, My Teacher? It might help.” And there’s something in the way Edelgard smiles, a little slim at the edges, that makes that feeling worsen before El turns on her heel and moves back towards the noble she’d left, those shoulders tight and gait purposeful. 

Dorothea fortunately doesn’t leave Byleth with much time to think on it, twining their arms before she’s tugging her out onto the grounds, winter air hitting cheeks with a refreshing, brisk rush. 

“Thanks.” Byleth offers when they’ve managed to make it outside onto the bridge that connects the Great Hall with the Great Entrance. All of these buildings are so large that Byleth thinks she might get lost in the stone and never see sunlight, again, at times. She doesn’t fit in a...Churchgrounds or an Academy or a Kingdom Palace.

She’s a woman whose reflection only fits in the still waters of a lake, fishing lure bobbing beneath the shortest length of her brown boots. Who fits in the reflection of a golden sword that no longer gleams, lost to shadows and night that she had cut herself out of years ago. Who was maybe built for a tomb before she was ever born and her heart was crafted inside it. 

Byleth doesn’t fit anywhere, at all.

“It’s the least I can do for the Professor who’s literally saved my life at least a dozen times. Figuratively, perhaps more. I can handle a little bit of uncharacteristic emotional crisis.” Dorothea settles next to her, shivering from the cold, and Byleth thoughtlessly shrugs off her cloak, wrapping it around shoulders. “You know, Professor, you look...very lovely tonight. If I were younger and still in your class, I might swoon.” 

“Oh.” Byleth looks down at the change of outfit. Edelgard had insisted, smoothing fingers along fabric with a fond, scheming hum. The cloak had stayed, but the rest of the outfit, she’s certain, was something Edelgard had already imagined for her. Not the outfit, but being free of the clothes she fights in every day, for a change.

It does feet like a second skin--flowing and dark silks, a pink sash tucked around hips.

It...reminds her of Sothis, and the thought makes her smile. 

“Thank you, Dorothea. You look beautiful.” And Dorothea does. Dorothea _always_ does. “I wasn’t the only one who noticed you, either.”

The compliment, sincere, tinges Dorothea’s cheeks pink from something far more than the cold, shifting closer to Byleth until the heat from her shoulders seems to radiate a little outwards. 

They’re quiet on the bridge for a long time--long enough that the din inside dies, just a little, lost to the quiet of the night, and their breath turns into smoke quicker than it had, before, and that...feeling in Byleth’s chest seems to turn into steam along with it, rising up into the air, dull and forgotten. Mist usually was. 

“...would you really let Edie marry someone else?” 

Byleth knows the question is something she could answer--that Dorothea is misled--but she truly thinks on it, for a moment, fingers curling around the railing of a stone bridge she’s not particularly familiar of, but that a young Edelgard might have known very well, once.

Was Edelgard like one of those children who reached up towards the stone spires like a tree? Did she reach with stubby little fingers towards the top of a railing she could never reach?

No. Byleth is certain that Edelgard climbed the railing to the top of it and then was probably promptly rescued by some poor wayward knight who had to pull the Princess away from the bridge’s edge, another adventure to seek and challenge to thwart. Edelgard wasn’t reckless, but she was certainly brash.

Edelgard would have been a beautifully stubborn, impossibly adult child in a small body.

Wasn't Byleth?

That impossible child whose life was laid out for them, a land full of swamps to fall up into her hips in with no one to offer a hand to help her out--

“...Yes.” Byleth realizes, quiet and serious, looking out towards the grounds with a new certainty and a dull ache deep within. Dorothea’s eyes wet and Byleth doesn’t ask why, when she turns towards her, feeling her...own emotion well up within her, strangling her throat. “If it made her happy. Or...even if it didn’t, yes I would let Edelgard marry someone else.”

“Why, Professor? Surely...surely you know--”

Byleth shakes her head. “Because I told you, Dorothea, it’s her choice.”

“But--” For once, Dorothea’s words seem to fail her, brows knitting and knitting as she tugs Byleth’s cloak further around her shoulders and Byleth wonders if there’s more to this question just than close friends. Dorothea’s jaw trembles and Byleth carefully--cautiously--raises up her hand to swipe a thumb beneath her eye. 

“When…” Byleth’s lips part, trying to think through her words, voice measured and calm, “I was as tall as Jeralt’s chest, a man in our battalion taught me how to garden.”

Dorothea looks hopefully up towards her, leaning, just a little, into her hand. “He...he did?”

Byleth nods.

“I thought I knew what was best for plants. I needed water, so I watered them as much as I drank. And I thought they needed food, so I buried a piece of grizzled deer in the soil.”

Dorothea chuckles a little at the image.

“And I didn’t think plants felt anything at all, because I didn’t.” 

The chuckle quiets and Byleth continues, serious. 

“I killed _a lot_ of plants. And Matias told me something I still remember. He told me that the plant knows what it wants for itself… and it will tell you if you listen. When the soil looks thin, you help nurture it. And when the leaves droop...you water it. And do you know what happens when you sing and talk to a plant?”

“What?” Dorothea swallows, leaning fully into Byleth’s hand, smiling a little up at her through the tremble of her lips. 

“Matias told me it would smile. I didn’t think I would be a good teacher, but I knew I was a good gardener. So I listened--I listened to all of you.” Her thumb carefully swipes underneath Dorothea’s eye. 

“You are...a very unnervingly good listener.” 

The smile on Byleth’s lips is slim. 

“I can’t make your choices for you. So much of your lives have been made by other people--so _many_ of your choices. If Edelgard wanted to marry someone else, I would let her, because it’s not my choice to make.” 

“Can’t...you give her the choice you want her to choose?” 

Byleth laughs--a quiet, surprising noise, and her features turn soft. Just a _little_ soft around the edges.

“Edelgard has that choice, too.” 

Dorothea doesn’t look satisfied with that answer, immediately opening lips before Byleth shakes her head. 

“If I wanted to marry someone else, Edelgard would let me, as well. I’m certain of it.” It’s said with an unwavering certainty. A nod. “If you care for something, you need to let it grow, Dorothea. You can't keep a seed in a box forever, eventually it needs to be planted."

Dorothea shakes her head. “I just wish...I wish happiness was more like an opera. Well, without the tragic death or...occasional regicide.” 

Byleth hums. “I don’t think marriage is what makes happiness. I think…” What was it Edelgard had said earlier? A hint of wistfulness tucks up lips, “Partnership is about trust and respect. And regardless of marriage, I’ll be by Edelgard’s side until the end.” Byleth looks at Dorothea _knowingly_ , lowering her hand from her cheek to her chin to give a small smile. “Won’t you?” 

“I suppose when you put it that way...that’s true, Professor.” 

“I think you have strong loyalties with all those you care for, Dorothea. I don’t think marriage is as important as the promise behind it. Petra, Edelgard, myself--”

Dorothea’s eyes close and Byleth tucks up her chin, just a little--bold in a way Edelgard’s taught her to be--rewarded with the swimming of dark eyes below her. Dorothea’s smile cracks at the edge. 

“We’ll all be there for you until the end, too.”

“That’s something I can certainly agree with.” Edelgard’s voice is as smooth as the sound of clicking heels within her boots, cold air sending a shiver down her spine as Byleth looks up to smile not just at Edelgard, but--

“That is something I am very much agreeing with, as well.” Petra smiles, hair slightly messy from its intricate braid, sweat shining along her forehead from a night spent dancing, smile easy and stretched as she bows in an elegant Brigid dip. “Dorothea, I was looking to dance with you but could not find you. Are you...being well?” 

Dorothea laughs a little and twists, miraculously without tears the moment she does, offering a beaming smile as she moves to take off the cloak. 

“Keep it for now, it’s cold.” Byleth squeezes shoulders before patting her on the back, Dorothea clearing her throat as she shifts closer to Petra. Eyes lingering, for a moment, on Edelgard. 

“I had told Petra that you both had gotten hot inside, so we came to find you,” El hums, taking up Dorothea’s place on the balcony, both of them watching as Dorothea nods at the bow, taking Petra’s hand. 

“I would love a dance, Petra.” 

Petra beams before nodding up towards her Professor and Emperor, disappearing not into the crowd, but further down the bridge. 

“That’s not towards the--” Edelgard hums, Byleth's back easing as Edelgard’s glove skims along the lower curve of it, humming as realization dons, “Did you know they were staying out here? Is that why you let her keep your cloak?"

"She was cold." Byleth shrugs.

"And you know your fish, even when you're not fishing." It's a tease, "I'm starting to see just how _much_ you see of all of us, My Teacher. It's...fascinating and unnerving, how well you know us.”

"You know them just as well." 

“I suppose." Adding, "I _do_ know Dorothea’s clueless about Petra.” Edelgard’s hand smooths upwards to bare shoulders and Byleth’s brows knit when suddenly her own shoulders are covered with the Emperor’s red coat, curiously looking down at puffed shoulders. 

“I think Dorothea’s scared, not clueless.” Byleth shrugs and raises eyebrows when she sees one of the poofs raise up and up and up out of the corner of her eye. How does Edelgard not get distracted while fighting in--

Byleth sighs when lips brush her own, suddenly pulled away from all other distractions into this singular one, kiss warm and soft and lingering, feeling Edelgard’s eyelashes flutter against her cheek. 

“You would truly let me marry someone else?” 

“You were standing there for a while.”

“We both were. We didn’t want to interrupt.”

“And you both like eavesdropping.” Byleth’s lips barely twitch upwards. "I classed Petra as an assassin for a reason."

But Edelgard is too serious to tease, fingers pushing upwards to cup both of Byleth’s cheeks, making their eyes meet. 

“I don’t want to marry anyone else.” 

“I know.” And Byleth does. 

“But you would still give me the choice?” And there’s a hint of moisture in those familiar eyes--enough that Byleth knows this is important.

“I will always give you a choice, Edelgard. You’ve always given me one.” 

“Neither one of us had many of those in life, did we?” 

“...no.”

El tucks lips behind teeth, eyes bright through that shine.

“Then I’d like to get married in a forest. Or at least not... _here._ You can choose where, and I just happen to choose _not here._ ”

Byleth smiles. “Okay.” But she sucks in a quiet breath and looks towards where Dorothea and Petra disappeared, down the cobble path.

“I did come out here to check on you. You felt something earlier, didn’t you?” 

Byleth’s head hangs for a moment before she nods and Edelgard lowers a gloved hand to the spot above Byleth’s chest that’s nearly as red as the coat now safely shrugged on shoulders, where she’d rubbed and rubbed and rubbed at it. 

“It wasn’t a good feeling, was it?”

“...no. I don’t think it was.” 

“Why don’t we walk, my teacher? Everyone else is in the party, I’m sure we won’t be missed for a few hours.” Edelgard boldly twines their fingers, left going in Byleth’s right. “Or be seen, if we walk now while they’re in it.” 

“...okay.” 

So they walk, Edelgard’s jacket eventually slung over both of their arms due to the heat of the halls, quietly talking through what happened earlier, trying to pin down a name for a feeling to large for either of them, fingers twined beneath red. 

Eventually, they come to the hall outside of the royal quarters, no one stationed there due to the festivities...and the fact that their Emperor is supposedly taking part in them, at the moment. 

And Byleth recalls the way Edelgard glided so beautifully about the dancefloor--elegant; a fluttering, graceful bird--and scowls, for only a moment, when she recounts watching Anri with her.

And suddenly Edelgard stills her walk with a hand on her shoulder, squeezing their twined fingers. And _kisses_ her, long and slow and lingering. 

“Professor…” Edelgard’s voice curls upwards at the edge like a pleased cat whose tail flicks, amusement and _warmth_ filling its edges slowly until it brims over onto Byleth’s sighing lips. Edelgard’s hands hesitantly skim down her biceps and her elbows and her forearms, growing a little bolder with each second that they touch--she always does--and when Byleth turns on her heel, the smile gently tucking up familiar lips makes her breath catch. 

It’s...an interesting feeling. Warm. _Good_ , she thinks. 

“Are you jealous?” Edelgard is _teasing_ , fingers skimming further down to tangle with Byleth’s, both of them wordlessly pressing back from the main stairs nearby into a corner, out-of-sight. It might as well be the welcome brush of a battlefield, hiding them from enemy’s eyes, and Edelgard is a little bolder in the shadows of it, arms raising up to crane around Byleth’s neck.

Her head tips to the side. “ _Jealous_ ?” The repeat curls on her tongue, lips barely pursing as she tastes it and thinks on the definition. “That would mean...that I want something someone _else_ has.” 

Edelgard’s eyebrow quirks, still teasing, and Byleth’s not sure why she’s both warmed and mildly... _annoyed_ at the knowing glint in her eyes. Is she annoyed? Or just... _fond_ . It’s so rare to see El joking, she might take a thousand annoyances for one sly smile. “ _Do_ you?”

“I already have you,” Byleth points out, knowing what she’s _getting_ at, pressing Edelgard further up into the corner in a way that makes her gasp, their bodies flush together and...oh it's warmer, now. Byleth is certain they’ve never pressed so close in dresses. Then again, they’ve also pressed together in _far less_ , even while sparring, but there’s something...different about this. Pleasing. Like maybe Byleth might be able to dance, after all. Gloved fingers tighten their hold on the base of her neck, all of Edelgard tensing before she arches upwards into her, fingers burying themselves in hair. "And you're not a possession."

“It could...be an experience you desire, not just a possession.” Edelgard’s voice is full of breath, humming as her nose skims over Byleth’s ear, smiling in a way she can _feel_ as a shiver trails down her spine. “Do you wish you were dancing with me, my teacher? Hmm, I still can’t make you _blush_ , can I?”

“No. I’m not blushing.” It’s Byleth’s turn to smile, that fond warmth swelling in her chest, back arching as Edelgard’s lips boldy skirt over her earlobe, gently sucking on it before Byleth’s knee slides between her legs, pressing her up against cool stone in a _rock_ that makes her gasp. “But there _is_ an experience I desire.” She decides, feeling El arch up into her with a moaning breath and curling fingers so tangled in hair, smiling as those same hands move down to hips and push beneath the black fabric around Byleth’s stomach, the open sash of the dress, all of it bunching about white gloves. Just to touch her. “We’ll be caught if we do this here.”

It's a slim chance, the Emperor's quarters are on their own wing, not even a vassal's room nearby, and someone would have to drunkenly walk up an entire spire to get to this very hall. But if Arundel noticed Edelgard was missing--

“Then let us be _caught_ ,” Edelgard lets out an annoyed huff as she pulls out her hands and then forcibly tugs off gloves before replacing them back up fabric, nails raking up skin so lightly Byleth is surprised at how _branded_ she feels. “I’m so _tired_ of all of these noble rules. If there were ever a clearer reason to destroy the nobility, it would be _this._ ” 

Byleth laughs, a dark, warm noise full of heat and desire, against El’s parted lips before the noise is swallowed by them in a deep, slow kiss, fabric bunching as ungloved hands chart a warm, knowing path upwards to breasts--smooth thumbs and palms until Byleth _moans_ against her. Quiet and full of need, the fabric bunching around wrists as Edelgard pushes a winning campaign up the charting path of Byleth's breasts, high enough to expose her to the stone and dark, violet eyes as she breaks the kiss, lips eagerly following the same trail her hands had. The dress falls down to Byleth’s hips, shoulders suddenly cold in this warm hall. But Edelgard's mouth is searing in its heat.

Lips wrap around her nipple and--

“ _El_ \--” She _breathes_ , surprised and suddenly _aching_ , tugging down the thin line of underwear around Edelgard’s waist, hips already rocking up into her wrist. They've gotten far better at this. “I forget you think rules were meant to be broken.” It’s husked, voice low as Edelgard’s pleased smile kisses towards her other breast, looking up towards Byleth for approval and something _else_ as her tongue rolls around puckered, hardened skin. 

Pleasure shoots down from breasts to a clenching stomach before she releases it with a confident, pleased, _eager_ pop. 

And oh, this feeling is more than just desire. Byleth cups her cheek.

“Just the senseless, oppressive ones.” 

“And which rule would you like broken now, Edelgard?” It's breath in Edelgard's ear, stepping closer until her Emperor is flat against the wall, breath stilted and heavier. Byleth happily takes the upper hand.

“The one that’s…” El trembles as Byleth slides the underwear further down thighs--down knees--from pressing up against her, knee replacing her palm until something slick greets her. “Keeping you from--”

Edelgard arches.

“From what?”

“Oh.” Bare hands snap down to bare shoulders and Byleth's rare smile curves over her earlobe.

“From what, Edelgard?” 

“ _Ravishing_ me.” 

“Ravishing you?” 

“I--oh, don't repeat it. It sounds like a poorly written romance novel. I need you, my Empress. You weren’t...the _only_ one jealous, tonight.”

Byleth pulls away just enough to see the way El bites her lip, fingers curling into shoulders and holding her _tighter_ \--

“Tell me what you wanted.” It's softer.

“I wanted...to dance with you--” Edelgard's fingers trace her lips, “And kiss you--” Breath hitching as Byleth presses her knee upwards. She's learned Edelgard, now--she _knows_ Edelgard, every inch. Every breath. “And stand next to you without worry of--of holding your hand, my love--” It's softer, El leaning upwards to rest their foreheads together. “I wanted everyone to know...you’re my wife--”

“That’s what I wanted too, Edelgard.” Byleth kisses her. Realizing, “I think I _was_ jealous.”

Or maybe many, many things. All the things Edelgard has made her. 

Byleth knows what jealousy is. It's the thing that burns fire in the thin strands of relationships she's never had--it ruins all things, in comparison--and Byleth…

Byleth still doesn't understand jealousy--why she feels like she needs everything she's never had, with Edelgard. Why Edelgard makes her want _more_ from life than she's ever thought to know, let alone want.

But she understands what _El_ wants, right now.

“Byleth--” El husks and Byleth raises one of her free hands to cover her mouth to muffle the noise in such a way that seemingly only encourages Edelgard to moan _louder_ , a breathy, desperate sound that covers the pumps of Byleth’s fingers and the slick, _wonderful_ music of them disappearing between Edelgard’s legs. 

Sinking deep inside of her as she tastes her panting breath, replacing the hand that quiets her with her mouth, pressing her so vulgarly up against a wall in the middle of a dimly lit hallway. Is this improper? Does it matter? It doesn't matter to Edelgard, Byleth knows.

The feeling of Edelgard breaking away to breathe--biting Byleth's shoulder to keep herself from making any noise--makes Byleth feel like nothing else matters.

\--

**_Horsebow Moon, 1188._ **

The campfire crackles, popping in the night as smoke fills lungs with an earthy hint to complement this taste of sea in the air, here. A battle of cool and warm along her tongue, thumbs smoothing down the wrinkles of her last letter. 

They've moved their encampment a little South of the fortress, glad for the fog to hide the smoke from the fire. They'd spent the day routing forces to the West but every once in a while, Byleth's eyes had lingered on the horizon, though now they're lingering on a far different horizon in front of her. 

Her thumb traces the curling swirl of a name.

“So I can’t help but notice that that letter of Edie’s is _twice_ as long as the formal one. That’s an awful lot of _in_ formality, isn’t it?” Dorothea’s smile is more dangerous than a bear trap as she steps up behind her professor and Byleth sighs. It's only them, for the time being, everyone else scouting or getting some well deserved rest, Ferdinand included. They were all exhausted from the nonstop barrage of fights pressing on Kleiman and Byleth wonders why they keep throwing men at them like fodder.

She can't figure it out. What lure are they using--what are they trying to catch?

"Oh, I’m only _teasing_ , Professor. We all know you and Edie are close. Very close. _How._..close is it, now, exactly?”

“Dorothea--”

“Look, I’m just saying, we’ve been in the middle of a war for _ages_ . It’s grueling, and if you put off telling someone how you feel until _after_ it, you might regret it. And I _care_ for you, Professor. I don’t want you and Edie to waste what time we might have. Even…if we're momentarily stuck here.”

“Have you told Petra how _you_ feel?” Byleth doesn’t see the point beating around the bush, turning around to face Dorothea’s surprised eyes, widening, breath catching against the base of her throat. 

It reminds her that Dorothea has had to deal with nobles for far too long, outside of Byleth--most people have probably been too coy to outright say it.

“Petra--” Dorothea stumbles and then huffs through her nose, looking a little _annoyed_ and _refreshed_ all at once, and whatever she was _going_ to say visibly dies on her lips as shoulders slump in front of one of her closest confidants, an honor Byleth doesn’t take lightly. “...is about to assume the role of Queen of Brigid.”

“And Edelgard is the Emperor of Fódlan.” Byleth points out, head tilting to the side. 

“But that’s _different_ , you and Edie have--” Dorothea looks a little uncharacteristically _small_ as her hands wring in front of her lap, a woman who’s normally larger than life, itself, withering without the bravado that usually lifts her shoulders. “Edelgard has loved you for _years_.” 

“I know.” Byleth says simply and Dorothea looks up, a little _angry_ , now.

“If you know how she feels, then why haven’t you--what do _you_ feel, Professor?” It’s the first time someone outside of Edelgard has ever asked her that question, and it’s the first time it’s been so... _angry_ . A little... _protective_ , those fingers twining so tightly in Dorothea’s lap. Byleth’s head calmly tips to the side. 

It’s admirable, how offended Dorothea is on Edelgard’s behalf. It’s the sort of thing that might make El’s lips twist up at the edges--her head duck before bolstering shoulders. 

“I love her.” Byleth says this simply, as well. Byleth doesn’t smile, but there’s no shortage of sincerity. 

Dorothea blinks, clearly not expecting the blunt response.

“Then--” It’s stumbled, still blinking, _huffing_ , “Then why haven’t you _told_ her?!” 

“Why do you think I haven’t?” Byleth lowers the letter, turning to face Dorothea completely, now. The question is gentle, not accusing, and she watches her student’s face turn a little white as she blinks, _owlishly_. Warmth spreads through Byleth’s chest.

“What?”

“Edelgard knows how I feel.” Byleth nods, “And she’s still the Emperor of Fódlan, and Petra will still be the Queen of Brigid. Maybe you can’t be together the way you’d like until after the Secret war.” Byleth agrees, pointed as she steps closer to Dorothea, not taking her hand like she might Edelgard, but offering a small, knowing smile, all the same, “Maybe you can’t be with Petra the way both of you would like until long _after_ the war, too. But if you tell Petra how you feel, then you’ll both have something to fight for.”

“You…” Dorothea sucks in a quiet, rattling breath, her own hand shaking a little before it wraps around Byleth’s wrist, reaching out for her. “You always know the exact thing to say, Professor. I’m--” She offers an apologetic smile, “I’m sorry for assuming the _worst_ about you and Edie.” 

“That’s alright, Dorothea.” And it is. It's not like they've dissuaded the rumors. If anything, they've let Hubert feed them. “You love her, too. Just in a different way. Like how I feel about both _you_ and Petra,” She frowns, realization following: “I’d like for you to be happy.”

Dorothea’s gaze softens and her grip tightens a little on Byleth’s hand. Her eyes look a little _wet_ but unlike Edelgard, she doesn’t shy away from the emotion, instead raising her free fingers to dap away underneath them. “Do...do you really think she’ll love me back?”

“I don’t know. In my experience, I guess...it’s always been easier for me to know other people’s emotions before my own and you’ve been around Petra more than me, lately. So...what do _you_ think?”

“I think...she loves me.” The realization seems to dawn on Dorothea, then, eyes widening a little and those fingers hold a little tighter, still, to Byleth’s hand. “Oh, Goddess, what if she _does_ love me?”

Byleth shrugs because she’s still figuring that one out. She’s good at teaching _tactics_ , not emotions.

And then she blinks at Dorothea’s hand twisting in her own, catching it by the wrist--when did she get that fast? Is she practicing?--twining their fingers like a snake wrapping around its prey and not letting go.

A faint feeling of unnerved trepidation fills her stomach.

Byleth is not the only one who can go fishing.

“Wait a second, _when_ did you tell Edie? How long has this been going on? Who told who first? Oh, I can’t believe you both let me ramble on like a _fool--_ ”

Dorothea proceeds to say _a lot_ of things very, very quickly, and Byleth hears maybe half of it before she raises her hand.

“Dorothea.” It’s firm and, surprisingly, Dorothea stops mid-sentence. “How about after the Slithers are gone, you, Edelgard, and I will sit down over tea and you can ask _her_ all of this?” Maybe Byleth should feel a little guilt at setting Edelgard up for this, but they did say they will tackle _everything_ together. And...Dorothea might need four sets of hands to handle. Adding, because devious plans have never been her forte: “And you don’t mention this to anyone else until then.”

Dorothea’s lips purse, “Oh, you _tease_ . Fine, I can keep a scandalous secret.” A long, long sigh, but she’s _smiling_ beneath it, and has a bit of a skip to her step as she wraps her arm underneath her Professor’s, tugging her close by the elbow as they start walking to camp. “But only if you tell me how you told her you loved her. You know I love a good romance, Professor. _Something_ to tide me over through the end of this war.”

“I told her I loved her, there isn’t much of a story, Dorothea.” Brows knit and there’s that sigh, again. Now she _hopes_ she's been taking lessons from Hapi.

Maybe then a beast will get her out of the walk back to camp with a bubbling, excitable Gremory.

At least Dorothea doesn’t look so _sad_ , anymore. It makes Byleth feel a little...lighter.

She can imagine Edelgard softly smiling by her shoulder, looking a little fond, herself, watching Dorothea _gush_. 

It almost makes the walk back, full of endless, peppered questions that Byleth has to figure out how to field without giving away too much information (for once, she sorely misses Hubert) worth it. 

“Alright.” Dorothea bolts upright an hour later from where she had started to sleep by Byleth’s side, a look of determination settling on features along with a hesitant, uncharacteristically nervous smile. The Dorothea behind the facade--it’s a concept, knowing Edelgard so well, Byleth is familiar with. “When I go back to Brigid, I’m going to tell Petra how I feel. It...might not be as romantic as I’d like--there’s so little time to plan anything, but--”

“She’ll just be happy to hear it, Dorothea.” Byleth shakes her head, “You don’t need anything other than that.”

Dorothea hesitantly nods before laying back down.

 _That_ is what makes it all worth it, Byleth decides, dipping a pen tip in ink to write her response back to El, writing taking up a quarter of a page compared to the pages tucked safely in her bag by her hip. 

_El,_

_We’re going to have to go to tea with Dorothea when we get back._

_I’m sorry._

_Love,_

_Byleth_

\--

 _Guardian Moon, 1187_.

“Well…” Edelgard clears her throat, eyes still dark and smile wry as she slowly lowers her leg, moaning at the feeling of Byleth shifting inside of her. “That was unexpected. But, hmm...not unwelcome.” 

Byleth kisses her and kisses her until both of them smile and pull away, Edelgard _giggling_ beneath her mouth as she hopelessly moves to fix their appearances. 

“El.”

“Hmm?” Edelgard pauses in fixing her braid to fix Byleth’s dress, pulling it once more down breasts regretfully. 

“You tried to make me blush, earlier.” She reminds and Edelgard gives her a patient look--quizzical--slipping a clip back into her braid to hold it upwards, disappearing into white waves. “That’s not the first time you’ve tried. Do you remember what you asked me in the Goddess Tower?” Byleth cups her cheek in this little corner, taking in the way the light from the nearby torches highlights her flushed complexion, thoroughly disheveled and _beautiful_. 

Edelgard seems to think on it for a moment before that flush turns to color, "Who your first love was?" Byleth hums in assent.

"Ask me, again." 

Edelgard’s smile turns _gentle_ before it spreads, this seeming to take her attention off her own appearance as she lovingly tucks that red jacket around Byleth’s shoulders once her dress is once more properly aligned. “Will it make you blush?” The tease is quiet and, oh, that smile is beautiful.

Byleth’s thumb smooths over a bruised lower lip before kissing her, again--softer. 

“No.” She admits, “But it will make me _happy_.”

“Who is your first love, Byleth?”

“You. Now ask me," Byleth watches the emotion shift in Edelgard's eyes, curious--fascinated. Slightly in awe of it. "Who...my last love will be."

Edelgard's hands fall to flatten over the red skin over Byleth's heart. "Who is your last love, Byleth?"

"You. And someday,” Byleth smiles--quiet; gentle, beneath Edelgard’s doting hands, “We’ll be able to tell everyone else in that hall. I realized before how much it bothers you.” Lips thin, serious and quiet, "I...didn't know it bothered me, too."

“Someday we shall, my love.” El agrees, that smile _radiant_ in its simplicity-- _happy_ ; content; satiated--before kissing her, again. Soft and lingering and _full_ of so much tender love Byleth’s chest tightens. “Until then I’ll conveniently move all of the guards away from darkly lit corners in their patrols.” 

Byleth’s brows knit, sounding for a moment like a professor, years ago, despite a hint of amusement lingering on her tongue, “Your insatiable desires are going to get us assassinated, Edelgard.” 

“Hmm...and _what_ a way to die, don’t you think?” A beat, far more serious: “...you _don’t_ think anyone heard us, do you?”

Byleth chuckles and hums, face mostly impassive save for the faint twinkle in her eye.

“I guess we’ll find out.” She pulls back, head tilting to the side as she takes in the very rumpled sight of Emperor Edelgard von Hresvelg's dress. “It’s a better story to overhear in a tavern than you beheading someone, isn’t it?”

 _“Byleth_.” 

\--

**_Horsebow Moon, 1188._ **

_My Empress,_

_Please excuse the necessity of a second letter. If you have not received it, yet, a far more proper greeting awaits you from the messenger with impressive, performative words one might expect from our titles in the morning. It's stuffed to the brim of business and is as short as Hubert has urged me to be. Perhaps I should have left it at that, as we both know Hubert has a valid point. For if this letter fell into the deadly shadows, we might tip our hand and they might see how much you truly mean to me, let alone how much I value you._

_It’s not something I want, as much as we fear to anticipate it._

_Yet, here I am. I suppose I couldn't help myself for the same reason I consistently let you sneak me from my desk towards the gardens to eat sweets underneath the stars. I've ignored Hubert's guidance all of those times--I see no point to start listening to it, now._

_Those are the moments I find myself clinging to all too often when the sun has set and I find myself staring at the coolest side of my bedroll, regardless of the fact that we have never shared it. I feel this journey would be far easier with you by my side, but I suppose everything always is._

_Hubert sustained a wound last week that we had to cover, lest our troops see how quickly it knit before their eyes and my hope is...treacherous. I feel so light perhaps I might be a beacon in the fog, but that feels naive, doesn't it? Perhaps reckless, I know you think so._

_I have dispatched from Enbarr to Hyrm some two weeks ago and expect to arrive within the week. The plague has ravaged the land and I foresee trying times ahead for all of us and perhaps that's why I'm writing this. I don't know when I'll next be able to write and...fine I suppose I'm worried for you, since I'm not there at your back at the front lines. I'll let my second missive handle exactly what has transpired in your absence on a more strategic level, as we do need your guidance, so let this one serve as those sweets under the stars:_

_You made a promise to me, my love. As a woman of your word, I expect you intend to keep it._

_The sun is far brighter when you're near. Be safe._

_Always,_

_Your El_

\--

 _Guardian Moon, 1187_.

"I had a feeling you would be here, Professor." A cloak hangs up between them, Dorothea smiling outside of the Emperor's chambers. Surprisingly, Dorothea doesn't pry as she smiles, leaning a little against the door jam. A little...giddy.

"Things went well with Petra?" 

"We danced."

"Good." Byleth's lips turn a little upwards, taking back her coat.

"I just came to return your coat…"

"And catch me in Edelgard's room?"

"...well. Yes. But mostly return your coat."

"..."

"Oh, don't look at me like that. _Really_. It wouldn't be right seeing you without it."

As if summoned by sly comments, Edelgard materializes next to Byleth's arm, both of them having long since changed from dresses to more comfortable attire.

"Goodnight, Dorothea."

"Oh, Edie, what a surprise."

"Yes, I'm sure you were very surprised to see me in my room in the middle of the night." A hum, "I take it things went well with Petra?"

Dorothea's smile spreads just a hair.

She looks...smitten.

"We danced." 

After tipping her head, Byleth drapes the coat over El's shoulders, knowing she's likely cold in the hall.

Dorothea _beams._

"And how are _you t_ \--"

"We've just been up talking, Dorothea."

"...I'm worried you're both serious."

"Why wouldn't we be serious?" Byleth's head tilts a little further, "We're strategizing for next week's mission."

"Of course you are. I think it's also worth mentioning that there's a wedding downstairs in case either of you would enjoy some relaxation." 

"Goodnight, Dorothea." But there's a hint of a fond smile on Edelgard's lips, now, turning to move back into the too large room and too large bed that they find they both sink into the middle of like quicksand and the map splayed in the corner with both of their notes.

"I was wrong." Dorothea whispers, apparently having leaned in close, lips twitching upwards. Byleth wonders when she got so close. "That coat looks lovely on Edelgard. Goodnight, Professor."

A sigh, shaking her head...and pauses at this still new warmth.

Byleth reaches up to her own lips and wonders if she's been smiling all night, watching her leave. Chuckling to the empty hall, no guards to be seen:

"Goodnight, Dorothea."

\--

**_Horsebow Moon, 1188._ **

**_Byleth--_ **

_**Byleth--** _

_**\--Get up!** _

Brows knit as she shifts along the cot, tumbling and rattling like restless leaves beneath wind, eventually sitting upright and sighing when she sees Dorothea sleeping on the cot next to her, sheets tucked around shoulders. 

A sigh, quiet not to wake her as she slips out into the slim twilight of night, staring up at the skies. Body sore and cut and bruised. It makes no sense, all of these onslaughts. They haven't cut off the supply line to Kleiman, or even attempted it. They've simply continuously arrived on the fortress' doorstep with vicious tenacity and a startlingly growing body count.

There’s been no attempt to assassinate them while they were sleeping--no attempt to route them when they’ve arched out to proactively thin the bandits’ numbers--nothing but a constant press against them.

It...bothers Byleth in a way she still can’t place, unsure of their _motive_. Ferdinand had suggested they were aiming to tire them, but Byleth--

It makes no sense.

A sigh, palm idly rubbing at her chest as she slips out the letter from its pouch, dim light from their fire lighting Edelgard’s familiar, beautiful scrawl. 

“It’s a beautiful night, isn’t it?” Ferdinand’s voice is calming--familiar--as his boots sink into the sand of the lake’s shore. The exhaustion clings to his voice like a strangling vine, easy for anyone to see no matter how much it might blend in with a tree, and Byleth gently folds up the letter, slipping it into her pocket with little haste. “It reminds me of Garreg Mach. Do you know it’s been nearly a year since I’ve been? I find it...quite hard to stomach, myself.” 

A thoughtful hum, that wind rushing through Byleth’s hair--through her cloak and her fingertips, letter barely rustling before it’s finally safely stowed inside. 

The wind _does_ remind her of Garreg Mach--of the day she’d taught Edelgard to fish, the thought lingering on her with as much warmth as a cloak might offer, smiling as she looks out towards the lake nearby. 

Towards the fog and the wind and the distant shore of North Morfis she can no longer see.

Her eyes keep drawing here, to this point. To this fog.

**_What do you see--_ **

She’d asked her--

Brows knit. What does she _see_ in this pond?

The wind rushes towards the fog that pushes against it--fog that’s been steadily growing for weeks. _Months._

Fog that’s heading _towards_ them, despite how the wind has constantly--

That feeling that’s been haunting Byleth feels sudden, now, and _suffocating_.

 **_Do the fish know_ ** \--Edelgard had wondered over the dinner they'd made that night, quiet and musing and a little sad in the way the weight of the world had taught her how to be-- **_Why they run? Do you think they know when they’re about to be caught, or do they just feel it?_ **

“Ferdinand.” Byleth's voice wastes no time, immediately pushing forward to snap open the tent she'd left behind. He stands immediately at the urgency in her voice, tired general _always_ ready at her command. “The fog--”

“What about the fog, Professor? Do you see enemies in the--” Ferdinand immediately snaps up his lance, on the ready to spot fire in the distance. But there is no fire.

Only _light_ glimmering faintly, catching off the surface of the water and absorbing into the fog.

It’s impossible for magic to exist in a place where it wasn’t there, before--impossible to change elements that hadn’t been there, once. Sometimes they need to build and regress and _grow--_

“Dorothea.” It’s calm and firm and the mage immediately shifts upwards in a way only a near decade of war might condition, long hair tangled and matted from sleep. 

“P-professor, what--” 

“The fog isn’t natural." She bends down to a clump of sand Ferdinand unknowingly kicked into the tent with his haste, trying to break it beneath her rolling fingertips. "And they’re not trying to _exhaust_ us, Ferdinand--” Byleth holds open the flap for Dorothea, who immediately shifts off of the cot. None of them sleep in anything but war clothes, now, but her feet are bare and Byleth knows they don’t have time for her to wrap her cloak around her shivering shoulders. 

It will be a cruel night to Dorothea, she thinks, but wonders why the notion weighs so heavily on her chest.

“We tested the fog. You think it’s magic that’s creating the--” Dorothea, a student who’s _excelled_ , turns towards the fog in front of them, gasp barely masked by fingers raising up to lips. “Oh, Goddess. Are you sure, Professor?” 

“I don’t understand--” Ferdinand is calm and tired and Byleth moves towards their horses, reigns hooked on a tree nearby. 

“They’re trying to keep us _here_. They’re trying to keep us busy and distracted.”

All of those letters from her students have mentioned fog, rolling and thick and oddly persistent. How they’d been using it to hide their locations--how it was convenient. How it was a blessing. How--

"They're going to kill all of us before we even know it." Byleth's voice is calm and factual, tossing Ferdinand his reign.

“Goddess.” Ferdinand pales beneath the fire, “Should we sound a retreat?"

The wind rushes through Byleth’s hair, standing it upwards, swirling around them and it happens suddenly: she _feels_ them in the fog, surrounding the encampment--the rallying cry of soldiers in the dark from across the sea of salt. 

An entire army teleports into the clumped sand, shrouded in black, their eyes glowing with--

"Their...their eyes--" Dorothea _gasps_ and Byleth catches the scent of magic in the air as everyone in the encampment up the path scrambles to sound their horns, assassin's bows deadly in their strike, cutting off most cries before they can even sound.

"Ferdinand--Dorothea, Defend--"

Their backs all press together as a horse neighs, frighted by the sudden crack of air above them, like lightning as it fills night sea air.

"Dorothea, meteor a signal past our line towards the fortress--Corps--!"

Byleth shouts for her battalion--an immediate Northern push towards the fort, but a swirl of red envelops the land in front of them, cutting off the three from the many, their lone tent unsinged by fire. 

Did they know that the Black Eagles had moved South to scout, suddenly in the thick of their forces?

Dorothea has barely managed a burst of magic upwards when suddenly the rest of their enemies appear from the fog, surrounding them.

It's quick, after that. Battle always is. It's the wars that are long.

The spear of Assal pierces first through an assassin's neck like a bandit had so many years ago; a second meteor is vaulted into the flank of mages starting their casts above them, pushing down fire from the heat as Byleth bends knees, shifting the air from above to the ground, earth erupting in Ragnarok in a swift circle around them. It cuts them off in flames, but that's easier to traverse than swords.

Two more fall to a lance--a stomach of someone emerging through the fire in a vicious, grueling shriek, almost inhuman; another, their side, catching the hilt of an axe before Ferdinand uses his weight to break it away into the fire, kicking the dead weight off and away--four more, at least, to another meteor cast off past their enclosed colliseum, towards the fortress--four, in swift succession, to a blade whose hole showcases the flames about them like a portrait. 

The flames grow unhinged underneath the magic in the clouds, great columns of fire towering up higher than their manmade scout that tumbles and crashes to the ground with a great thud as they pass it, pushing towards the Fortress and their screaming men. 

"Dorothea, we need to open a path West to cut off the flank towards the Garrison."

Her feet must burn on the embers crackling on the ground, but she nods. 

"Ferdinand, mount and--"

Byleth’s head snaps upwards to catch a man in a cloak, bow trained on Ferdinand, who has no defense with his spear and she tugs him down from the horse before shielding him with her back.

The pain is sharp. Immediate.

It slices through her with a sickening efficiency, an arrow piercing through her shoulder. 

_Idiot. Fool._ Sothis might say.

All Byleth hears is the roaring of fire and wind and fog and _screams._

Ferdinand's javelin swiftly launches into the dark abyss of the cloak and the archer crumbles before the flames, Byleth's grunt of pain lost as Ferdinand pulls her behind a nearby tree, the smell of smoke and blood filling her lungs as Dorothea swiftly closes their gap with more fire, the pillars buying them precious time.

“Professor--” Ferdinand's voice curves upwards, frantic--

“Professor, let me heal--” Dorothea immediately shifts before her and Byleth struggles to stand before closing her eyes and breaking off the end, tossing it into the fire. It pierced straight through and while it's not the first time she's been pierced by an arrow, it's the first time she feels bile rise in her throat. It feels...different, somehow. 

Her heart aches like a war drum.

“We don’t...have time, we have to--" A shuddering breath before Ferdinand helps her stand, "Evacuate the fortress.” 

They all look upwards past the pillar of fire--

The Fortress’ signal fire shines in the night. It won't for long.

“We have to give them the order to fall back to Leonie and the East.”

“This level of magic…” Dorothea struggles beneath Byleth’s weight, shifting to her other side. “What could they possibly be planning? There’s...there’s no records of--”

“...yes there is.” Ferdinand pales. “Arianrhod and Fort Merceus."

Byleth looks up towards the sky. They’re surrounded, no retreat. They can’t fall back. Fish, caught against the edge of the pond. 

“Professor.” 

Byleth looks at her palm, red of blood sinking into the ridges of fingertips, brows knitting. If she could rewind time--

“Professor.” 

Lips barely purse, taking in the fighting scene around them that's visible through the harsh flames, pushing away from her students to stand on her own. 

Calmly assesses.

The magic hasn’t fully built, yet, otherwise they would have used it. They don’t know where their fallback position is, unless any of their other positions have fallen, but they would have heard word if there was this large of an attack, or if this much magic had unleashed in an attack--

A nod, decisive. There's one path that ensures the war, even if it forfeits the battle.

"...the strike force can misdirect them towards the West, and we’ll send a small team with a messenger to the East. Ferdinand…” 

“Yes, Professor.”

“You’re fastest with a horse.”

“What?” 

“Dorothea and I can redirect the magic, but you’re the only one that can break through to warn everyone else what’s happening. If we do have a spy, we cannot trust it with anyone else, Ferdinand.” 

“But--”

“I’m wounded.” Byleth says simply, “Go. It’s an order, Ferdinand. Dorothea? With Ferdinand, or with me.”

“Yes, I--” Dorothea's matted hair is stuck to her forehead with sweat and blood but she nods, a little firmer, “I’m with you, Professor.” 

“Good.” 

They all share a look and little, precious time, is all they have before Ferdinand leaps up onto his horse, racing away from them and through the pillars of fire. 

He’s out of Byleth’s earshot when she turns back towards Dorothea, whose jaw barely trembles but eyes set stone. They're not alone in this fight and when they break through the flames on the opposite side of Ferdinand's swift departure, Byleth sees the splintered remains of Dorothea's battalion scrambling back from the assassins.

Even two of the Black Eagles manage to make quick work of them, only a handful of robed men left from a battalion of twenty. But they're more than Byleth and Dorothea.

“Let’s go. Mages!” Her voice carries over the din of the fight--the screams and the swords clashing and the fire-- “With us! Gather as much magic from the air as you can--create us a path through the fog!” 

~~_**You can feel it, can you not?** _ ~~

They manage to fight through the thickest of the bandits despite Byleth’s wounded arm, sword of the creator dull and bronze compared to its life as the sun full of oranges. 

~~_**You can feel it coming.** _ ~~

They’re nearly to the edge of the fog when the air grows thick. 

They have only a second to spare before they'll need to move, but they take it. 

~~_**You can feel the change of time--** _ ~~

"I had forgotten," Dorothea pants against the wall of the fortress as they gather their men, sweat clinging to her neck and her ashen, bloodied cheek, smile wry and tired, "What it was like to be your adjutant, Professor." 

A smile. Dorothea's hand hovers over her unwounded arm. They'll push to the West and Ferdinand--

~~_**We felt this, before--** _ ~~

It tastes like blood flooding Byleth's mouth.

The blinding flash of light is so quick that few of the soldiers have time to scream and all Byleth sees is Dorothea’s widening, frightened eyes before she leaps forward, a composers’ hands lighting green around them and Byleth’s wounded arm barely manages to tug her closer before the green and white engulfs them.

~~_**We felt this.** _ ~~

The sword of the creator, thrust into the ground between them, glows for barely a moment through the white before all color fades to black, the soft wind brushing along the waves of the lake standing in front of a gaping hole in the ground where the fortress of Kleiman once stood.

Dorothea Arnault, pierced through the side by a bolt of light, covering Byleth's back like a cloak as the eerie glow surrounding the Sword of the Creator, shattered into far more pieces than an old empire about bare feet, fades.

She trembles before she slumps upon the arrow still lodged in Byleth's shoulder.

~~_**With Jeralt**. _ ~~

And in the stillness of the word and the stillness of the wind, Byleth unties Dorothea's hair from its hasty, painful, uncharacteristic bun it had been swept into in sleep from eyes so that it can be free and wraps her cloak around bare shoulders and apologizes to an empty field--

"I'm...sorry, Dorothea." Byleth's voice sounds hollow, "For...making you run through fire without shoes."

Silence is her only answer. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts? Questions? Anger?


	4. Blood (Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _What is something that is gone--if it is not the past and the future and everything in between? Nothing is ever gone--it is only out of sight, out of touch--but if you imagine it as it was, isn’t that the same as it always being there before you? And if you held it now in front of you...wouldn’t it be like it was never there, at all? What is that, little one? What is that...if it’s not magic? Because magic is everything that was once nothing at all but always has been. If you remember it, isn’t it here? If it’s in front of you, don’t you remember it gone? So, then, what is something that is gone, if it’s not magic? What is something that is gone, if it's never really gone, at all?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a little longer than intended...but, hey, so is the story! So the chapter count has been updated. 
> 
> Please let me know what you think!

It _aches_ . It burns and aches and blood pools from a shoulder and an ear and the world tastes white and black, all at once, fingers curling in it-- _smothered_ in it, wrists so deep in black that her bones might twist and curl like vines lost in mud it. And weary flesh might be back there, in that pit--in that void--in that endless nothingness of black and black and black, even in all of this white.

Magic cannot pull from nothingness, even if what it spawns is _Faith._ The _belief_ that something will be there--the thing that Reason cannot abide.

 _Seraphim,_ Dorothea had teased.

Perhaps if looking at two empty glasses where nothing is contained, it can be seen that something once filled one of them--something once filled a sparkling crystal to the brim with browns and whites and clears until it sloshed along the edges and spilled over the sides--and something now fills a glass that once was full of nothing, at all. 

It’s possible to fill the glasses, if they were full, once. And it’s possible to fill one glass with the other, if one is _still_ full.

What is time? Byleth’s never needed it. She’s never marked it in days or moons or months until Edelgard. It’s something that ticks away--something that’s lost--

But what if it wasn’t? What if it’s just marking something that’s always there, just beneath the fingertips. Just beneath the air and the ocean and the way red pools beneath nails.

 _What is something that is gone,_ Sothis had once murmured this along the air and the wind and the magic caught between fingertips that spread green along white earth as the world turned purple and black and everything in between, shifted and twisted as time became what was and what would be--promised and soothed along quaking shoulders above a father’s lost form _\--if it is not the past and the future and everything in between? Nothing is ever gone--it is only out of sight, out of touch--but if you imagine it as it was, isn’t that the same as it always being there before you? And if you held it now in front of you...wouldn’t it be like it was never there, at all? What is that, little one? What is that...if it’s not magic? Because magic is everything that was once nothing at all but always has been. If you remember it, isn’t it here? If it’s in front of you, don’t you remember it gone? So, then, what is something that is gone, if it’s not magic? What is something that is gone, if it's never really gone, at all?_

What is something gone, if it’s not everything and **nothing** , at all? 

Fingers flex above a sea of white before they glow green, color buried beneath the quiet breeze. It’s difficult to focus...but suddenly Byleth feels no need to focus, at all. Suddenly, Byleth feels the air wrap around her shoulders before it rushes from her own lungs down to parted lips and a still, sprawled body over knees.

Suddenly, Byleth understands what Sothis had meant--what Sothis had tried to tell her...time isn’t magic. Magic is _time._

_Both sides of time are revealed to you, and you alone--_

The world turns purple and black and blue in all of this endless, endless white. A gasp--a tremble--a _heartbeat_ that stutters and aches amidst a thousand pieces of a woman who used to share it before everything calms. Her hand quivers above a black cloak.

Byleth watches Dorothea breathe and feels her own halt in her chest and in the next moment, everything goes white.

\--

Edelgard stands and the moon shines down shoulders in strands of white silk, hair tangled from the day unravelling in waterfalls of white that catch dim night light through the colored windows of the high chapel walls. Stained glass dances roses of shadows along the scarred flesh of her shoulders and Byleth shifts to the edge of the bed, fingertips tracing down the bumps of her spine like a blind woman learning to see. 

The dullest thud pulses along her wrist as she moves, foreign and faint, and when Edelgard’s head tips over that shoulder, the shadows now paint her cheeks and chin in the most delicate of darkness, eyes bright and softer than she’d likely ever desire Fódlan to see. 

She smiles. Gentle and quiet--the smallest twist of lips upwards, fingertips reaching up and outwards to skim her palm up along Byleth’s stomach, which clenches and settles like a river beneath her touch. Great and rolling and never quite calm, even when it seems it.

“What is it?” Edelgard’s voice is just as soft, brows barely knitting in concern, and Byleth realizes in this moment that her own face has twisted and twisted, fingers that had traced along a spine up to her chest, hands trembling as they press and press against the dull weight there. It’s so...consuming. This dull, dull ache that spreads and spreads throughout her body, but settles in her stomach like a brick weight. 

She clutches her chest, own brows knitting, and shakes her head.

“I’m fine.” She’s had far worse pains than this, but this isn’t...a pain she’s as familiar with. Cuts and scrapes and bruises--tears and gashes and one time that an arrow was stuck through her thigh. 

Edelgard shifts, knee resting on either side of Byleth’s hips until she’s straddling her, fingers familiarly painting down her cheeks--soothing--before they lower down to the hand clutching at her chest and soothe at fingertips, as well, until that dull pain is a tremor and her hand eases its hold, just a little. 

Edelgard is leaving to Arundel tomorrow and then, once she returns, it will only be a week before she sets for Hyrm and Byleth to Kleiman. 

“Byleth, you’re _shaking_ ,” Edelgard points out, tone calm but there’s a hint of _worry_ buried underneath, “Tell me.” 

“I…” And she doesn’t have words for this--this…”...feel--” She realizes. _Feeling_ . This... _feeling_. Thumping and thumping and thumping away, spreading and twisting in her stomach and the worry abates, just a little, in El’s eyes when Byleth looks upwards, those shadows cast from the windows shifting to paint her neck instead of violet. 

“What do you feel, my love?” And El is _patient_ , now, settling on her hips, one hand resting on the one over Byleth’s heart while her other raises to skim knuckles along her cheek. “What happened?” 

“I was...watching you sit up on the edge of the bed,” She recalls, voice factual and brows furrowing further, head tipping to the side, “And you looked…beautiful--” The shadows don’t cover Edelgard’s blush and there’s that... _ache_ again and without thinking, the hand holding herself up on the bed raises up to wrap around her waist, pulling her close until an Empreror is fully settled on Byleth’s hips like a throne. They’re close enough that she can taste the gasp that tumbles from Edelgard’s lips and her neck cranes when those knuckles turn and sift through dark hair, nails raking at her skull. 

So softly. The sort of touch that might put a kitten asleep. 

“That’s not a feeling.” Edelgard reminds, though it’s not a scold. Their noses brush and Byleth’s eyelashes flutter and with each breath of Edelgard, it seems her chest starts to settle. “Let’s see...what were you thinking when you felt it?” 

“I was thinking that you looked beautiful.” Byleth repeats, lips barely twisting upwards, herself, eyes opening to take in Edelgard’s simultaneously unamused and bashful look. “...I knew you were getting dressed.” She tries, voice turning serious, “And that you would leave to your room. I wasn’t really thinking _anything_ , I just--” A small huff through nostrils, and Edelgard pulls away just enough to fully look at her, a bit of determination on her face, like Byleth’s heart is an examination she intends on seeking the answers to and passing. 

It makes it feel a little more familiar, really. Byleth is _used_ to Edelgard looking like that, in a world of things she’s _unused_ to feeling, even now.

“What did it feel like?”

“A...dull ache. I was watching you, and thought you were beautiful, and knew you were leaving, and felt this dull, spreading... _ache_ that wouldn’t--it won’t go away.” A frown, features twisting downwards far more than they usually do at the displeasure. 

“...Longing.” El’s face softens with sympathy, hand flattening over Byleth’s over her heartbeat, twining their fingers and resting there. Byleth knows the _word_ \--knows the definition--but has never _felt_ it before and her face crumples further at the sound of it. 

“You really think so?” 

“I can only answer from what you’re describing, but, yes. If...” El looks a little shy underneath the confident bravado of her emotional knowledge, tipping upwards to so softly brush lips over Byleth’s and that... _emotion_ spikes in Byleth’s chest in a sharp, sharp breath before it warms all the way through her like a long chug of hot soup on a cold day. An arm tightens around Edelgard’s waist, leaning up into her to kiss her, again. “You didn’t want me to leave--”

“I don’t.” Byleth firmly responds in a warm breath against parted lips, sighing as Edelgard’s fingers curl just a little tighter in her hair and she lets go of the hand above her heart to wrap that around her waist, too, letting familiar fingers cup her heart and her breast, instead. 

Byleth is safe here, after all. 

“I never want you to leave,” Byleth’s face is still contorted and that... _longing_ aches and aches. “It sounds so _desperate_.” She frowns, “Is that what it is?” 

“Love can _be_ a little desperate, I guess.” Edelgard offers, kissing her again and Byleth tugs her closer until this time El is the one sighing against her mouth. “Especially...when you’re so used to losing it.” 

Byleth’s hands skim down her hips up her back to her shoulders and down, again, holding her close--wanting her... _close_. 

“Did you ever feel this way?” 

“Oh, Byleth,” Edelgard’s laugh is quiet, leaning their foreheads together, hand settled firmly against her heart and lips a little _bruised_ from earlier. She says it like there’s some kind of joke only she is in on beneath the surface--like of _course_ she’s felt it. “Yes.” 

“It’s still there.” Byleth grouses, a little...unsettled by it, but it eases a little with each and every rise and fall of Edelgard’s chest against her own. But now it feels...complicated. Like a river that’s been tainted by mud kicked into its surface, and she lets go of the...embarrassment at trying to voice all of this, at all. It’s easier when Edelgard kisses her forehead. “And it feels like...more than one thing. I thought...from reading that people only ever felt one thing at a time.”

“Sometimes it can be like that, too. Sometimes we feel nothing, and sometimes we feel... _one_ thing very strongly, and sometimes...I suppose we feel _everything_.” The murmur is soft against Byleth’s furrowed skin and she lets out another breath, sagging against the wall, feeling the comfortable weight of Edelgard wrapped around her. “Well, if you let yourself feel it.” 

“I have a choice?” 

“...no, not really, I suppose. But you _can_ ignore it.” 

“Why did you ignore it?” 

Edelgard frowns as she pulls up to look at her, but there’s a _brightness_ in her eyes.

“...I forget, sometimes, even when I’m trying to teach _you_ , that you can be...unnervingly and arguably annoyingly astute.” 

Byleth smiles and her breath finally settles, too, that dull pain ebbing away beneath the steady flow of Edelgard’s voice above her.

“Many reasons. For a long time, I thought emotions would get in the way of the choices I needed to make--the road I knew I was facing. So I tried to ignore them, but that didn’t make them go away. If anything, _you’ve_ …” Edelgard shakes her head, “I suppose you’ve taught me that emotions are what makes me a capable leader.” 

“You have a good heart, Edelgard.” Byleth nods, fingers smoothing back up to her shoulders that roll beneath her touch, easing down into her. “You _care_.” 

“So did you, Byleth, even when you didn’t fully feel the repercussions of it.” Edelgard surprisingly offers and a once-mercenaries’ brows knit once more, taking full stock of the words. 

She _did_ have a heart, unbeating.

“...I _did_ care.” She realizes, like it’s a foreign concept. She’s insisted she does, of course, to disbelieving looks and shaking heads. It’s the first time someone’s offered to Byleth, herself, that she cared enough for someone to notice--that she’s cared enough for it to be more outstanding than her impassive features. It’s almost easy to believe a lie told your entire life, especially when people have no stock in lying. 

Jeralt lied to Byleth with the best of intentions, she's come to realize.

But still Edelgard is the only one that’s offered that maybe _that_ lie that he believed was the worst of all. 

“Does it still hurt?” Edelgard pulls Byleth from wayward, straying thoughts until she settles here, once more, looking up at her when a hand so gently tucks up her chin, ring glinting in the morning sun.

“A little.” The admittance is quiet, caught beneath violet eyes, unwavering. Dorothea had insisted Byleth’s stare was piercing, but nothing could hold up to the stare above her, now.

Like Edelgard knows every inch of her, and every inch she doesn’t she intends on likely conquering and claiming with a true heart and the best of intentions, herself. 

“Then I’ll stay.” But El’s eyes are fond--loving--as she holds her, knees slotting further up her hips until their skin can settle together comfortably and calmly. “The morning, at least. We’re engaged to be betrothed, if anyone has a problem with us sharing quarters they can just _keep_ gossiping about it like they’ve done for the past six and a half years.” 

“Hubert’s going to be angry.” Byleth doesn’t argue--just simply hums a hint of amusement as she slides her hands down lower to the underside of thighs--

“Hubert’s natural state of discontent isn’t my highest concern at the--” Edelgard is cut off by her own tone turning into a bright, quiet squeal of an _eep_ as Byleth tugs her the rest of the way into her lap, hands snapping up to catch herself against the wall before she can fall on top of her on the bed. “ _Byleth_.” 

This time it _is_ a scold, despite her flushed laugh--

Byleth simply raises one hand to gently tug Edelgard’s from the wall--the left--

“What...do you feel, now?” Edelgard asks as Byleth tugs off the right, wrapping them both around her as she cups her bottom and spreads legs against her as she presses the other woman’s hips down. A second gasp that tumbles into a breathless noise, “ _Byleth--_ ”

This time is definitely not scolding. 

Edelgard was right--she feels a whole mess of things. Pride and Love and Longing and Happiness and Lust--

She knows all of these words, but didn’t understand all of their meanings. They’re all words Edelgard’s taught her until she understood them far more than curved lines on a page--

“Desire.” She answers in her ear, sliding legs further apart, understanding this emotion on her own, catching El’s mouth in a slow, open kiss as she presses her back down into the bed, towering over her. Watching that hair fan out moonlight on the blanket. “I feel...everything at once, just like you said.” 

"And you said _I'm_ insatiable." Edelgard looks breathless and shy but there’s that determination settled so deep in her gaze, mixing with all of the emotions Byleth might feel and more as she arches up into her and tugs her down as legs wrap almost protectively and _defenselessly_ around Byleth’s hips, at once. 

Who knew hearts could be so many contradicting things? 

“Show me.” El requests before she kisses her, clothes forgotten on the floor and an empty room across the courtyard and the steps and all the sunlight covering grass in-between. An aching, request, Edelgard’s fingernails curling in her back and her voice quivering and her eyes bright with love-- “Show me all of them, my love.” 

Longing, Byleth realizes. Learns. Accepts.

Kisses her and kisses her until they’re both lost in the mattress and each other, warm skin and breathless voices.

She would show Edelgard the world, if she let her, so the least Byleth can do is show her the smallest part of it:

Her heart.

\--

" _El…"_

The noise rasps and rattles like a broken piece of glass kicked about a boot, weak and small and brittle in its learned sharp edges. 

“Easy, Professor.”

It seems hard to open eyes from far more than just fatigue but when they do finally sliver open, she's greeted with long, singed hair beneath flickering flame light and she has to force herself to blink again to see concerned, serious eyes. 

“...Ferdinand?” 

**_Horsebow Moon, 1188._ **

“Yes, it is I, Ferdinand von Aegir.” His voice is hushed and soft as he settles a lamp near her hip, close enough that she can take in the rest of her surroundings muted in shadows. The soft, easy swish of wind against canvas rumpled and stretched in the corner suggests they're in a tent, the faintest breeze suggesting that tent might sport a few holes in it. She's covered in a numnah that's elegant and familiar to the touch--ferdinand--and it's difficult to turn her head but she can see the smallest curve nearby covered in blankets and coats.

Her mouth feels dry and the next time she tries to speak it rasps again, saved by a small pouch of water raised to lips by Ferdinand's unwavering hand.

“I...am aware you told me to retreat, Professor, but after watching the strike--seeing what happened…” A thick swallow and Byleth's unfocused gaze watches the deep hollow of his neck covered in those shadows bob up and down like a fishing lure. “I had to come back to see if you had survived. You can imagine I was pleased to see you both well, if...a little bruised.”

Dorothea is in the blankets.

“Did…" Byleth scratches around the water still coating her tongue, trying to swallow the rest of it down, again, "Anyone else--”

Ferdinand’s head hangs, “A few of the company, but not many. We managed to retreat, continuing with your plan. But I fear they’ve started to follow us and I...am at a loss of what to do. I’ve...become accustomed to war, but I’ll admit that I was shaken by what happened at Kleiman.”

“Anyone would be, Ferdinand.” It takes far more effort than it should to turn her head.

“You do not seem affected.” Ferdinand notes and Byleth’s eyes close, brows barely knitting. Accustomed to this sentence, “Or, I mean…” Ferdinand sighs, “You have a much calmer head than mine. So it is with great relief that I see you’ve come to, Professor. How are you feeling?” 

“...Dorothea--” Byleth ignores that in favor of barely tipping her head--it’s...stiff. Her whole body feels stiff, fingertips numb. Her neck, in particular--her shoulders--

She tries to roll them and regrets it, pain searing down along her spine like a split barrel of tainted wine running along a dirt floor.

A faint suck of breath when she reaches up to feel the wound, an arrow still lodged inside. Good, it will keep her from bleeding out. Unusual, because she normally heals much faster than this--

"Dorothea…" Ferdinand seems to notice the furrow of her brow, fingers gentle as they raise a damp cloth to her forehead, “Is...not doing well. Her pulse is faint--barely there. If I hadn’t known better, I would barely think it was stirring, but she’s breathing.” 

“...good. She's breathing. That's better than not.”

“What happened?”

“Dorothea saved my life.” Byleth says simply before stumbling to stand, Ferdinand immediately moving to help her, catching beneath her elbow and hefting her upwards. He knows her well enough for them to traverse the small distance between towards the lump of fabric that once comprised a star of the opera, eyes flicking over towards the gauze in the corner that’s stained red in clumps. It seems Ferdinand has gone through enough of it, judging between her own shoulder and, as stiff hands unwind the blankets from Dorothea...her side. 

“There’s...no healer.” It’s a mangled mess, red seeping through it like spilled ink from Edelgard’s well on parchment and Ferdinand helps lower her down to rest along the pole next to her side, wind batting along the canvas feeling cool upon her neck.

Ferdinand shakes his head in response. That means all of the Magic Corp that followed Byleth into the fray wasn’t as lucky as Byleth Eisner or Dorothea Arnault. 

Byleth’s hands glow, faint, rune lighting the air as she hovers above Dorothea’s side. 

“Professor--” Ferdinand’s hand curves over her uninjured shoulder and she can hear the hesitation in his voice, even though her eyes are settled on the knit of Dorothea’s brow--on the way her lips have parted and breath _rattles_ in lungs. “She would want you to rest.” 

“Yes.” Byleth agrees and says no more, stiff neck strained as she looks up towards Ferdinand’s haunted, pallid features, his cut hair singed by fire and battle, uneven and tied backwards from his face. “Neither of us can afford it, Ferdinand.” It’s gentler, lips parting and breath hitching on Byleth’s lips before she focuses down on Dorothea. 

He nods in agreement before slipping out of the tent, grabbing back up his horse’s saddle pad and lance as he goes.

 _What is this feeling, El_? It’s wondered as fingers tremble above Dorothea’s clammy forehead, her breath trembling and her heartbeat as faint upon lips as Byleth’s had once been.

What is this feeling? 

Brows knit with determination, peeling back layers of fabric and pulling the dagger from her hip tucked safely in parchment and flowing words to cut away the seeping bandage at Dorothea’s side, struggling with a faint noise of pain to pull off the shirt stained with blood and dirt and sand from her shoulders. Her own bandage is soaked through. The dagger cuts both sleeves, next, before tearing the rest into long strips, redressing Dorothea’s abdomen before carefully dressing her own, the angle awkward and uncomfortable, each shift brushing torn flesh along an arrow buried deep inside of her. 

Before Jeralt left, Byleth had been as tall as the buckle of his hilt when a sword had impaled her side, wound practically as big as her arm given how small she had been, then. When Naham--their greatest archer--had sustained a similar injury the week before, he howled into the woods until ale soothed his screams to whimpers and whimpers to quiet, ragged breaths. Jeralt had shown her, then, how to dip his blade in fire before running it along the edge, watching silver steel turn the same orange a relic one day would in Byleth’s hands. Jeralt was never a mage--he never knew how to wield fire beneath his palm--but all magic came with a cost.

_The only thing a blade costs is your life, kid._

Naham didn’t survive and she’d idly wondered, then, head tilting up towards the stars, the smell of burnt flesh lingering along the thin press of her lips, whether it had been worth it to try. She had learned, then, that sometimes the most compassionate thing was to be quicker with death than feebly attempt to circumvent it.

_‘It would’ve been nicer to him to let him die.’ Byleth murmurs, watching the stars with an endless curiosity, voice calm and quiet as she turns up towards Jerlat, who looks haunted by shadows in the wrinkles beneath his eyes._

_‘Ain’t nothing nice about death, squirt. Guess there’s nothing nice about living, sometimes, either.’_

Fingers dance a rune in the air out of familiarity with a good arm, dim light of their ragged tent rattling with wind and shadows as fire burns into the night air above Byleth’s palm. Quivering fingers reach down to curve around Dorothea’s blade--carefully carried along with her from the felled beach to the tent by Ferdinand, it seems-- before heating the tip of it in the fire, watching it glow orange. 

Dorothea’s been singed by enough fire but Byleth runs the sword along her wound, regardless, until those ragged breaths turn into gasping, sleepless whimpers, pain too great for a frail body to contain it. The smell is as unpleasant as the gasp and Byleth rests her hand, now warm in this cold, stifling tent, along Dorothea’s forehead, trying to offer what little comfort she can. 

“I know.” It’s a calm whisper into the tent, remembering the way Jeralt’s blade had run along her side and the way her whole body curled, normally calm voice breaking in gasps up into the tallest part of their camp. Dorothea curls similarly up into her, now, barely hanging onto whatever thread of time she’s grasped to return. “I know.” Her voice skirts by Dorothea’s ear after the sword drops, wiping away the remains of blood and burned flesh as stiff fingers glow green above the wound, feeling ragged breath slow and calm and then ease, altogether. 

Dorothea’s eyes deliriously open, unbridled fear coating them in a wet, mad sheen as she searches Byleth’s features beneath the glow of green in her palm, remembering how it had felt to wake from more than one endless dream. 

It seems to take a second for Dorothea to recognize her, lips parting before pain or exhaustion take her, again, barely rolling into the palm on her forehead as her body trembles. 

Byleth once more raises up the cloak to tuck around her shoulders. 

She knows what this feeling might be, but doesn’t voice it, even to Edelgard, sliding a dagger back against her hip where some of their deepest thoughts have been shared, body sagging from pain and lethargy dragging bones back down into the Earth she’d dragged Dorothea from.

Fingers raise up to idly press away at her chest and her beating, aching heart, determined eyes settled on a wounded black eagle, the sound of the fighting outside long since faded away to the background. 

_This happens in war, sometimes_ \--she’d told Edelgard so many times, because it’s what Jeralt had told her, hand smoothing over her forehead as he dressed her side. 

This happens, in war.

\--

**_Pegasus Moon, 1187._ **

"...you look pale."

"Flattery isn't your strong suit, is it?" Edelgard’s lips slither upwards wryly in a way that might suggest she’s spent too long alone in Arundel with Hubert. 

"You usually tell me I flatter you too much." 

"Which brings to my point that it's not your strong suit.” The wry smile is full of tired humor, now, pale moonlight only highlighting the clamminess of skin, “You should try to find a middle ground, My Teacher."

"You're intentionally routing my question, aren’t you?"

"And you, true to form, won't let me." The frown is halfhearted as Edelgard hangs in this puddle of red sheets in her room and Byleth shifts behind her, tucking weight that feels _too small_ against her chest. It's telling not just that El lets her--they've found, together, that Edelgard quite enjoys being held in Byleth's arms and Byleth feels like arms were sculpted to hold her within them--but that she _sags_ against her. Relieved. _Exhausted._ The rope holding up the Emperor’s unyielding spine seems to have been sliced jaggedly through by a blunt knife, unraveling and spiraling until Byleth is the only thing holding her up. "I…" The air that sucks between teeth rattles and chills the air around it and Byleth can feel the sweat on her lover's brow and the absolute _force_ it takes for Edelgard to even _admit_ , quiet and hesitant: "I...do feel weak."

Byleth immediately raises her fingers up to a clammy forehead--a neck--deep scowl settling on features as she holds her. 

Edelgard had arrived back from Arundel this morning--a delay of six days that was unexplained in letter--and had been missing from both the briefing for Byleth’s skirmish in the West and Linhardt’s unnecessarily long thesis on blood regarding the plague and Hanneman's following hypothesis bearing _good_ news. An absence and late arrival that is only explained fully to Byleth now that she’s found her lying stiff upon her mattress, skin cool to the touch and lips cracked.

Byleth shifts Edelgard fully against her chest, brows knitting as her nose settles in the curve of her neck.

"Were you around any of the sick in Arundel?" 

Edelgard doesn't lie to her. She simply closes her eyes...and nods.

 _‘It’s unusual, isn’t it?’ Edelgard’s fingers skimmed along the map, ‘My uncle’s territory suddenly has a spike in the plague and in_ **_children_ ** _, no less. All before it had been nobles--a carefully crafted list of infected that spread to thin our forces and bolster their resistance against us, in the shadows. But now there’s reports of orphanages becoming_ **_rife_ ** _with it. Perhaps there lies the answers we seek.’_

"Hubert doesn't know." Byleth quietly surmises and, again, a weak nod follows. Arms wrap tighter around a slim waist, holding Edelgard up closer. 

"Not yet, no. When we knew our trip would be longer than intended, he had left to meet Ferdinand outside of Kleiman. This is the first time he's been from my side since we were young. It's irresponsible of me, I know, but...I don't want him to blame himself. And perhaps...I was hopeful that I could truly outsmart those who slither. They…" Her breath rattles as she twists in Byleth's arms to weakly brush fingers over her cheek. She sounds, for a moment, _ashamed_ at herself, "They went fishing."

They went **fishing.**

"El…" Byleth's face is calm but her throat shakes with the weight of it, "You should have told me."

"I know.” A quiet, breathless sigh, like it’s difficult to shift her neck-- “That was irresponsible, too."

"It’s cruel _._ " Byleth responds, immediate and calm and chest aflame with--with _something_. Something burning and aching and bright, but not gentle. No. Engulfing, like a flame. 

It tastes like anger. She had felt so much of it when she felt Jeralt sift through her fingertips. It _tastes_ like anger, but it feels--it feels like--

Eyes sting and Byleth blinks in surprise when she feels Edelgard's fingers smooth up her cheeks and bury in her hair. This surprise isn’t at the softness, but this-- _this,_ burning within her--

"Byleth--" Edelgard shushes her like a quaking beast in the torrent of a storm, fingers brushing through Byleth's matted hair and resting knuckles along her chin. "Byleth, I know an _apology_ is empty. I...hadn’t wanted our letters to fall into the wrong hands. Knowing they might have been successful--"

Byleth turns her chin but doesn't pull away, thoughtful as she looks out the window. 

“You were going to tell me?”

Edelgard gently guides Byleth’s gaze back from the window, serious and gentle underneath the moonlight and Byleth shifts to hold hands that quake a little from the effort of moving, at all, “Yes. I promised you no more lies. It’s a promise I intend to keep, whether or not the news is good or... _this._ ” 

"Then tell me all of it." Her voice is calm, once more. Collected. Calculating. And Edelgard shifts up a little in her arms like her spine has straightened to meet a commanding order on the battlefield. "Tell me everything. We'll face it together."

“Right. My uncle was there, which made it nearly impossible to see any of the children without his presence. On my second week, he’d had an unexpected visitor from Morfis that allowed me to finally sneak into one of the orphanages while Lysithea distracted him. They...were being experimented on in the bottom basement. Similar to...” Edelgard shakes her head, cutting off the memories that likely follow that path. Byleth twines their fingers, nose skimming down her knuckle. A stiff spine quivers before it relaxes against her, “Neither of us realized until too late that they were test subjects for the plague. I had been exposed. Lysithea has yet to show any symptoms, but I...well, I seem not to fair as positively.”

“You think Arundel let you see them intentionally?”

“I believe it was too convenient that I had the opportunity to see them, at all. I--” Another shiver and Byleth shifts so that Edelgard can rest up against her chest, "It's…" Edelgard doesn't sound defeated--it's not her way. Even on her knees on a battlefield, Byleth knows her love would not yield. It's another thing that swells her chest in pride. But she does sound _tired_ in a way she might be exhausted of hiding. How long has Edelgard felt this? It’s been nearly a month since she had gone to Arundel-- "A plague, Byleth. We haven't been able to cure it. There’s nothing we can do save for plan for the worst, unless you have a miraculous solution, My Teacher."

Lips thin.

“We don’t have to cure it.”

“I don’t understand--”

Byleth is quiet--mind still lingering, it seems, on her father--

"I can't give my blood to an entire town, but I can give my blood to you."

" _What_?"

"We have two options." Byleth continues, undeterred, and the Emperor shifts upwards, listening, as if this were the war room.

"I'm listening."

"The people who have _survived_ the plague--” There’s two, as Linhardt had briefed them earlier, amidst a jest from _Mercedes_ of all people teasing him about his note taking skills not quite being what she remembered in class. (Which was, to say, non-existent in Byleth’s experience). Their backgrounds were different--their homes different; families, different; _genders_ , even, different--the only thing they had in common was health. It had seemed, for all intents and purposes after Manuela had visited them, that the only reason they survived was due to an unyielding spirit. But after digging a little more, Linhardt had a second theory: they had unknowingly been involved with a magic that might successfully be used to remove a crest.

 _Hanneman’s_ following briefing on the subject held _far_ too much information for Byleth to absorb or rightfully care about, but the gist seemed simple: both of them had experimental procedures after the War of Duscur in Morfis--one in Northern Morfis, and one in the Southern territory. These experiments were aimed to help turn a minor crest major, based upon research that had burned in a mysterious fire in the church years prior, led by the current leader of the City of Illusion, and Edelgard von Hresvelg’s _proposed_ marriage candidate: Lord Anri. 

The experiment had been a failure ‘ _of frankly impressive proportions, honestly’--_

 _Hanneman adjusts his monocle, cloth he consistently_ **_still_ ** _managed to lose everywhere along the grounds safely returned to him on Byleth’s trip back into the war room, having spotted it hanging from a tree in the garden. ‘The experiment was deemed such a failure that there is little following research on the topic and all of the notes have been buried underneath bureaucratic nonsense so that it didn’t sully the good Prince’s name. This is not altogether uncommon, truthfully, and I had never blinked a second eye, but I did leap at the opportunity to read the failed research just last year when I happened upon articles of its effects in the Abyss’ library. It seems his research was funded by a nameless donor in Adrestria.’_

 _‘Which, after following the rabbit trail, has been concluded to be none other than Arundel, himself.’ Lysithea offers, looking weary from her journey back. Features have drawn a little tight--she seems_ **_distracted_ ** _, almost-- ‘I came across similar documents in Arundel, as Hanneman and I discussed when I arrived.’_

_‘Indeed.’ Hanneman slides the cloth back into his breast pocket, clearing his throat before continuing, ‘Both of our surviving nobles were involved in this experiment during their education at the School of Illusion in Morfis. After this experiment, they were reported to have difficulty wielding relics, and would frequently come down with bouts of lethargy...but after a year, reported separately that they felt otherwise phenomenal. After extensive testing alongside Manuela, we’ve deduced that the experiment was, in fact, an utter failure…’ Hanneman smiles, devilishly, like they’ve all been following him with baited breaths instead of yawns._

_‘Just get to the_ **_point_ ** _, Hanneman.’ Manuela, who doesn’t_ **_hide_ ** _her own yawn and has already lived through this revelation once around, gestures towards everyone sitting along the expansive table._

_He clears his throat, again. Ironically, Linhardt seems to be the only one curiously paying full attention._

_‘As I was_ **_saying_ ** _before I was rudely interrupted, the experiment was a failure...because all great science leads to fantastic discoveries, even in its greatest of failures. What this specific experiment was_ **_successful_ ** _in...was removing the two nobles crests.’_

_Lysithea immediately shifts in her chair, gaze snapping up to Byleth who nods in agreement at what she heard._

_‘Excuse me, Professor Hanneman--’ Mercedes intervenes, gentle voice rising up from her seat, fingers tangled in laps, ‘But I thought that someone needed to have a crest in order to contract the plague? I apologize if I misunderstood.’_

_‘Oh, no, Mercedes, you didn’t misunderstand.’ Hanneman_ **_smiles_ ** _, ‘They still have blood that carries a crest, which is how they contracted it. But I_ **_hypothesize_ ** _that they survived because the crest did not, in fact, exacerbate their symptoms.’_

_‘Interesting.’ Linhardt scratches along his jaw before nodding, immediately standing up, leaving the room with little more than a word.’_

_‘Could...it really be possible?’ Lysithea’s eyes have focused upon palms--upon invisible lines burned into skin by time and cruel hands._

_‘Yes, my dear.’ Hanneman offers, the source of his smile now clear. ‘It_ **_can._ ** _’_

"Hanneman truly believes this?" Edelgard searches Byleth's face, Emperor and young girl, both. "Of all the times I delayed reading his reports..."

“Your crests are making you weak. We either remove the Crest and let you naturally fight the illness, or we give you a better chance of fighting it. I'm...reminded of a story." Byleth's eyes slit, a tactician and mercenary--a professor, some days, and merely a woman most, it feels like-- is hardly well-versed in...science. Or crests. Or anything but fighting, but her lips thin and fingers curve almost protectively into hips, however soft. "I'm reminded of my father and Rhea."

Edelgard's brows barely knit the same way they always do when she takes in new information, features pale and serious.

"I don't know all of the story, but he...came across Rhea and saved her life and was badly wounded in the process. In his leg, I think. Before he could die, Rhea somehow gave him her blood and it cured him. It...caused him to stop aging, but that part doesn’t matter--"

"Jeralt had the blood of the beast?" It's a stunned realization and Byleth can see eyes widen even in the dark of the room. "I knew you and Rhea shared blood and a _crest_ , but I...I did not realize--" 

"She saved his life, and prolonged it, and when I was born, I had his blood...and the Crest stone in my heart."

"That is why you can wield the sword." 

"Could." Byleth reminds and Edelgard blinks seemingly upon realizing her own folly, shifting backwards to rest shaking hands against shoulders.

"...could." A beat, One hand sliding down to rest where her heart beats, "As powerful as you were with the relic, I far prefer feeling your heartbeat. Though I…" El's smile is weak and tired, "Feel I would have loved you no matter the outcome."

Byleth's hand lowers to cover Edelgard's, stilling its shake against her chest.

"I have Rhea's blood in me," She pointedly continues, undeterred. "If it worked with Jeralt, it might work with you."

"There's no way to guarantee what will happen, Byleth. And even if it worked, I'm not sure I want the _Immaculate One's_ blood to flow through my veins, I've been experimented on enough." Edelgard's voice cuts the glass of air with sharp teeth, "I fought to free the world from that _beast_ , it would be...traitorous to survive by relying on it."

It's a strange sensation, the way that...cuts. Byleth has heard far worse things from people and merely tilted her head, but suddenly this--

The way Edelgard _pulls_ from her causes Byleth to still even if she’s simply pulling herself enough for Byleth to fully see her eyes.

"You think I'm a beast?" There's a quiet, sincere curiosity there, removed and calm as she pulls away, herself, lips barely parted and chin tipping backwards. People had called her as much for years underneath fire and pleas.

Jeralt was a kind man, but death was kind to no one and death was learned to deal from a young age. As old as she could walk--as old as his hips--as old as--

How old was she, then?

Byleth distractedly looks away, out the window.

"Don't misunderstand me--" Edelgard's weak hands are on her cheeks. "I think no such thing. I love _all_ that you are, Byleth--"

This...this _emotion_ welling in her is...strange. And painful. It must suck all of the air out of her lungs from the way they _ache_ and it must contort her features into something _pained_ because Edelgard looks almost...apologetic. 

What is this emotion? She nearly asks, but suddenly feels _vulnerable_ , and that's nothing she's felt before, either, without leaving an opening to an artery on a battlefield. 

"I know." Byleth turns away once more, but her voice sounds hollow, eyes settling on the moon overhead. "It's okay. I understand. I told you I would walk this path with you." She looks back and feels a little emptier, that pain aching it's way up through the hollow of her bones. Spreading through her like a much slower fire. "I would never force you."

"Byleth…" Edelgard shifts in her arms, unconvinced, and Byleth shakes her head.

"If you don't want my blood, then we have to remove your second crest." She continues, undeterred, chest tight and she wonders what Edelgard must _see_ in her eyes to look at her such a way, quaking hands rising up to her cheeks.

"Byleth, I _don't_ think you're the same as that monster." Edelgard repeats, ignoring Byleth's sentence completely. 

"I said it's _fine._ " And her voice cuts and her hands curl and her lungs burst with _fire_ as teeth grit, breath suddenly heavy and heart… Heart--

Edelgard tenses at the short burst but doesn't pull away, weak hands instead raising up to her lover's chest, "Your heart is racing." It's barely a breath and Byleth feels herself tremble with--

That… That… _Anger._

It fuels her and settles unpleasantly against her tongue but Edelgard is grabbing her hands. 

"Byleth…" Those hands are tracing up her cheeks again and a spike of fury rattles through her even as she leans into them. "Byleth, what are you feeling, now?"

"I don't know." Teeth grit and she tugs Edelgard closer, burying her nose in her clammy neck, and hands raise up to curl in the rumpled fabric of Byleth's shirt. "I'm… I'm _angry._ " She decides. "And…" A sharp breath through her nose, turning further into her neck. "... Helpless."

"Byleth…"

"I'm not angry with being a beast. Maybe I’m…something about it, but not angry. I've heard worse." The admittance is breathed into El's neck. "I…”

What does she feel?

“...don't know what else to do." 

And she feels it, then, the same thing she had felt once before, holding Jeralt in her arms, rain soaking into softening dirt and grass. 

**_What is loss--_ **

"I don’t control time. I can't give you my blood. There's nothing else I can do to stop fate. I'm… I'm--" Byleth trips on the name for an emotion she's never felt, before.

"Oh, my love." 

"I don't…want to lose you, El." It comes out quiet--conflicted--voice calm even as brows knit and her heart...races.

Pride. Worry. Anger. Love.

Fear.

Byleth knows these words, but didn’t understand their meaning. 

Not until Edelgard taught her.

What does she feel?

She feels like a fish who’s staring down the lure, only Edelgard is the one on the hook. She feels weak. She feels _desperate_. She’s never been any of these things, before, has she?

"This isn't about me." Byleth reminds, turning up Edelgard's chin, who looks distraught and guilty and _tired,_ "Let me help you. If not with my blood...then I'll find a way."

"Byleth…"

"Come on." Byleth shifts off of the bed before leaning down to raise Edelgard up into her arms, red sheet spilling off of shoulders like a waterfall between them. 

"Where are we going?" It’s not a protest--if anything, her head settles against Byleth’s chest, arms winding around her neck as she once more _sags_ into her. Lays down the heavy burden of a front, just for a moment.

"I'm taking you to Linhardt and Hanneman.” 

“...alright.” Edelgard sighs, “But this _ends_ with them. No one else can know, the Empire is still too _young_ to lose its ruler without a contingency plan.”

Without Edelgard, the Empire might have taken Fódlan, but it will not have taken Those Who Slither in the Dark. And then, the war would have had no point, at all. 

Byleth nods, dipping downwards to wrap her cloak around stiff shoulders. They can’t afford for Edelgard to be spotted, either. _These_ rumors would be far more dangerous than the ones of their affair. 

“Byleth…” Edelgard murmurs into her shoulder, smaller than she ever should be as hollow steps ring out into the empty courtyard, “I hope you know I have no intention of losing _or_ dying.”

It makes Byleth smile. 

“I know, Edelgard.” That feeling has been overcome with determination as she presses open Hanneman’s door, shutting it closed behind them. He shifts upwards from his desk, concern and intrigue settling in equal measure as Byleth slides down her cloak to reveal tired violet eyes. 

Byleth should have known, then, that Hubert would follow them the entire way.

\--

**_Horsebow Moon, 1188._ **

It’s been two weeks, the fighting growing closer and closer outside of the tent. Byleth can feel the battles like a spreading fire in the forest, heat of death tickling familiarity up her spine.

Ferdinand has lost half of his forces--a motley crew of beaten, bloodied soldiers and conscripted mercenaries, an eighth of which went AWOL, deserted into the woods, and a quarter of which have died--and they’ve already moved camp twice. Byleth can barely hold her arm up, let alone a sword, exhausted and pale, and Ferdinand’s body has started to sag upon his bones like a wet towel left on a line. 

They’ve gone down from a full infantry to nearly two hundred to nearly half of that, left. 

Losing so many lives haunts him and Byleth focuses downwards away from haunted eyes to where the majority of her energy has gone, the few soldiers that have survived injured saved by the little healing she can provide, and--

"I can't…" Dorothea's breath is thin, sweating and shivering, body disappeared into an abyss of black, "Your...cloak--"

"You'll just have to return it to me, someday, Dorothea."

"Professor." Her voice cracks in protest, barely audible above the rustle of fabric and the sound of screamed orders, outside.

They’ve ordered to retreat. A squadron had located their camp in the middle of the night and Ferdinand has been rounding up all of the soldiers in their tents--this is the last one that remains. Byleth doesn’t shift with the commotion outside. They’ll be moving in a few hours, after sleep--it will make them easier to hide in the woods...but also easier to pick off. It’s a risky strategy, but one Byleth is certain will leave the majority of their remaining, sparse troops in tact.

"No, I know you're motivated by fashion." Fingers brush over her clammy forehead, gentle as she lowers them to squeeze an unmoving hand. 

“True. I’m also motivated by--” A weak cough that aches up a mage’s spine, sentence lost as she sags into the makeshift bedroll, “Tell me…” Dorothea’s throat is clung with sweat, Byleth’s hands warming with magic above her hip, the gouge deep and flowing with red. The burn only held so long before restless sleep opened it again. Magical wounds had ways of running deeper than most quite understood. “How...how did you tell...Edie--”

Byleth doesn’t have to ask what she means, not bothering to look around the tent. She knows only Ferdinand remains--she can feel his ragged, worried presence standing stalwart and stoic by the tent door. 

“I asked her to marry me.” 

Dorothea coughs a laugh, stunned and pale, sweat soaking into her eyes. Ferdinand barely turns from the door and she thinks she might catch a glimpse of his thin smile beneath the forest sunlight before he turns. 

“Oh...that’s such...such a _you_ thing to do...Professor. Here...a girl pines for you for years and you just--”

“She accepted. That was a year and a half ago. I’m sorry we couldn’t tell you.” Byleth’s brows barely knit, magic settling deeper and deeper into skin. “Two years, now, I guess...since we’ve been on the front.” 

Dorothea’s stunned smile tucks up and then settles in exhaustion, her hand trembling as it raises up to curl around her wrist. “That...fox. She had me believing--she was going to...to marry…that...”

“I know.” Byleth smiles, “We knew you would get it out of one of us eventually, though. You’re quite cunning, Dorothea.” 

Dorothea smiles, the edges wavering. 

“We’ll marry and then once it’s time, we’ll choose a successor and El and I plan on seeing the world, just the two of us.” 

“That...that sounds...wonderful.”

“She wants to ask you to be her Matron for the ceremony.” 

“I would be offended...if she didn’t. That’s such...such an honor--”

“Shh,” Byleth leans upwards, fingers brushing through long hair that’s never been so matted. Dorothea has told Byleth it’s important to care for her hair--had been annoyed when Byleth casually mentioned there were far more important things in war--

_Taking time for yourself in all this heartache and chaos and blood, Professor. That’s important, too--_

“You need to rest, Dorothea.” Byleth’s fingers sift through her hair, now, trying to gently detangle a few of the knots. To pick out a bit of the grime and blood that she’s well aware Dorothea hates so much. She, after all, is here not as a soldier in this war, but a friend to Edelgard von Hresvelg and the people under her banner. 

“Not to...to be dramatic, but if I don’t wake--” 

“I’ll tell Petra.” Byleth promises, immediate and calm, and slit eyes from exhaustion and pain brighten, just a little. 

“You always...did see right through me...Professor--” Heavy eyes finally shut and Dorothea’s hand slackens. Voice barely a murmur above the rustling of Byleth above the sheets. “I don’t...want to die.” A pulse still beats, faint, and Byleth frowns as she continues to heal, the tent quiet as both Ferdinand and herself have jobs to do. 

“I don’t want you to die either, Dorothea.” Byleth murmurs to the silence and Dorothea’s ragged breath before standing on quaking legs, letting out a heavy breath when Ferdinand moves to catch her before she can fall. 

“It’s my advice that you rest, Professor.” Ferdinand offers, shoulder-length hair tied neatly behind his ears. He eases her down to sit next to Dorothea’s restless, pale form, red soaking through the single sheet. “There’s more healing to be done and we’ll need a strategy of escape. These are both things you excel at, and I…”

He shuffles a little in his stand and Byleth marvels at how young and old he looks, in one, turning towards the slit of the tent’s entrance with a set jaw and flexing hands. 

“This is all I can do.”

“Alright, Ferdinand.” Byleth rests her back against the pole, muscles weary and sweat soaking into her brow, wound at her shoulder _aching_. She shifts, herself, but this time to bring Dorothea into her lap, protective and careful not to jostle her too much, a pained groan meeting them all in response. The bit of elevation will help blood flow, that much she’s learned both on the battle field and from Manuela, and this will be the only way Byleth will be able to protect her, if their enemies locate the camp and Ferdinand falls. 

He won’t, Byleth’s certain of it, but she knows both sets of fish. Her students will fight to protect--they will fight to the death--but the fish swimming up the lake of fire towards them--

They will fight until her students can fight, no more. 

Arms tiredly wrap around Dorothea’s waist, propping her up against her, using the position to apply what pressure she can against the wound until she’ll be ready to heal in a few hours. 

“You’ll make a good pair.” Ferdinand’s voice is quiet and Byleth opens her eyes to see his sadly smiling profile, highlighted by candlelight and haunted by exhaustion and worry in its shadows. His head tilts over his shoulder, “You and Edelgard. You already do, of course, but...I approve.” 

“I’m sure your approval will mean the world to her, Ferdinand. She needs your guidance.” Byleth quietly reminds, voice rasping but steady. His head barely bows, brows knitting, “But I appreciate it, too.”

The smile flickers like a flame before he turns back towards the entrance, lance at the ready below his knuckles.

Waiting.

“Thank you, Professor.”

Byleth falls asleep shortly after, fitful and plagued by Dorothea’s breathing growing ragged by each passing second. 

When she wakes, Dorothea’s cold and Ferdinand is on his knees by the entrance, stiff and hand shaking around the lance.

Byleth wishes Sothis were still with her for the strength, but she’ll have to do with the faint heart pittering in her chest as she shifts to raise Dorothea on her shoulder.

“Up, Ferdinand.” 

The commander stumbles to meet the tactician, taking one of Dorothea’s arms and wrapping it around his shoulder.

“Is--” He swallows, pale and ragged. “Is she--”

“She’s still alive.” Byleth’s voice is even and calm and she forces her legs to _stand_. “But not for long. Ferdinand.”

His head hangs and his shoulders shake with each breath, but he stands, as well, skin sunken as he turns to look at her. 

“I was wounded, as well.” It’s a simple fact, voice gentle. “I need you to take your Batallion East and route the forces coming from the river. Petra will meet you there and be able to take Dorothea to Brigid.”

“Professor--”

“You are more than capable of it.” Her voice is unwavering and Ferdinand nods.

He, after all, has been at war for seven years, and is intimately familiar with the blood pooling from Dorothea’s wound into his palm. 

“Where will you go?”

“I’ll route the forces coming from the South before they can meet you.”

“You plan to take the entire force on, yourself?”

Byleth simply nods.

“I’ll have to take the mountain pass. If I don’t make it, then I’ll ensure the soldiers do.” It’s a simple statement and Byleth shakes from underneath Dorothea’s frail weight and her exhaustion and her own pain, but stands as tall as she can, regardless. “The squadron who found us was small. I might be weak, but I’ll take them. Tell no one but Petra, Ferdinand.”

She won’t let them fall. 

Ferdinand might protest...before he nods. “Then I suppose this is where we part, Professor. I…” His breath shakes as it settles in his bobbing throat, both of them hefting Dorothea onto his horse with a weak groan. He catches Byleth before she can fall for a second time, squeezing her hand and meeting her eyes and she sees so much pain in them that he looks a ghost of himself. “Thank you. I will not say this is farewell.”

Byleth wonders if she should tell him, now, that she believes he’ll make a wonderful successor to the throne, one day.

She simply nods, instead. 

“I’ll see you in Hyrm, Ferdinand.”

“It will be a good day, Professor.” He nods, a bit of hair falling from its braid into his eyes as he swings onto the horse, strapping Dorothea in behind him.

“Ferdinand.” She calls and he looks so hopefully towards her--hopeful, perhaps, that she will come with him. He’s still so hesitant to lead on his own--likely even more hesitant after seeing all of these deaths. She wonders if he knows he hasn’t caused them--she wonders, truly, if that matters to a leader. All deaths underneath a banner are deaths caused by their name. “You saved our lives. Don’t forget that. You might have lost many--you might still, but in the midst of it, you saved our lives.” 

It seems important to tell him and it must be given the look he gives her before racing to the other side of the encampment and the few soldiers that remain in his batallion that were not left on the front. 

Byleth stumbles a little when he leaves, hand moving to her own side and where an arrow had struck, pulling up the edge of her shirt to see it still soaked with blood. They had run out of wrap a week prior.

It hasn’t healed in the least, turning... _black_ around the edges. That’s never a good sign.

A sigh before she moves forward, drawing her sword with her other arm, features easily shifting to something calm--impassive. She feels a familiarity, here--war isn’t quite her home, but it _is_ most of what she’s known, her whole life, however much time it’s been.

“It seems you were right, Edelgard.” She murmurs to the stars, exhaustion and wind tracing down her back and curving around the wrist that hefts up Dorothea’s sword. There’s no telling if Ferdinand will make it East--if Dorothea will survive long enough to see Petra, again--but the thought melts from her mind.

She hears the sound of horse hooves coming from the South and raises the sword, lips pressing in a thin, bloodied line.

She'd made a promise.

She’ll cut through _hell._

_\--_

_**Pegasus Moon, 1187.** _

“Byleth…” Edelgard’s voice is quiet from the stone table, wrists laid above her head. Hanneman, for once, had not insisted upon them being bound to the table and the two men in the corner are far too busy talking in animated, hushed whispers to pay any attention to them, at all, as Byleth’s fingers skim along a scar down a white forearm. “I had expected a much different reunion than you finding me asleep and feverish in bed.” 

Byleth hums her acknowledgment, letting Edelgard take her hand and twine their fingers in the cold classroom air. Idly, Byleth raises up her hand to sputter a fire before letting it die out, lowering it down to Edelgard’s shoulder, a slim smile her reward. The way her voice barely trembles--masked by confidence and casual indifference--reminds Byleth that there’s a reason Hanneman did not bind her hands.

“I...actually liked visiting Arundel, outside of seeing my uncle. The town was...unexpectedly peaceful. I’d forgotten what it was like to go somewhere that war was not its every focus. There were shops who had not shut their doors--fresh bread wafted from them up into the cobbled streets. I...had gone there many times, as a girl. I vaguely remember having _fond_ memories of my uncle, but those are all gone, now.” Brows knit, Edelgard looking up with barely widening eyes at the feeling of Byleth’s warm hand raising from her shoulder to just beneath her chin, curving around skin in familiarity. That small smile settles genuinely, now, nose barely turning down into Byleth’s palm--enough that she might be able to move, if Hanneman and Linhardt turn around. 

“Would you like to visit, again? After all of this.”

“I think I would, yes. With company, of course.” 

“Of course.” Byleth’s lips twitch upwards and Edelgard sighs this rattling thing, settling a little calmer onto the table. 

“I childishly picked you flowers. There was a patch outside of my Uncle’s estate--they were daffodils. I’d thought that you’re always bringing me flowers, that perhaps it would be nice to return the favor. I’d dried them--pressed them--and would have mailed them to you, had I not been under such intent eyes. So...I’d given them to the messenger to give to you and apparently through some grave miscommunication, the gatekeeper had thought you had sent him flowers while you were West. According to Mercedes, he was so touched that he started crying while she was passing him, and I don’t think the messenger had the heart to tell him they weren’t his. Apparently the wrath of the Emperor only extends so far.”

“...that’s embarrassing.” Byleth finally settles on, calm, and a laugh skirts against skin--soft and loving. 

“It is, isn’t it?” The laugh softens and Byleth’s thumb charts her lower lip.

“I hadn’t had a chance to tell you...” Edelgard leans further into her hand, her own coming up to curve stiff fingers about a wrist, lips brushing weakly along her palm, “I haven’t had a chance to talk to you, at all, it seems.”

“We’ve both been gone. I’ve gotten your letters.”

“There’s many trivialities in life that don’t fit in letters, My Teacher. The smallest things I didn’t have ink or time to tell you...and we’ll be gone, again, soon. I can’t help but wonder how much we’ll miss.”

“Nothing that can’t be shared when we return, El.” Byleth promises and feels how heavy the words are on her own tongue--feels how this...stirs something in her chest, quiet and honest. How _much_ she longs to share--

When, she wonders, did she move from putting words in a box to stowing them in Edelgard’s hands? Tales and trinkets and wonders--she wonders when she started to keep the most important seeds to plant in the safest soil of Edelgard’s smile and the brush of her lips. The thought stills Byleth enough that she looks down at her in that wonder, for a moment, brows knitting and lips pressing thin. 

“What is it, Professor?” Edelgard asks, shifting along the table. 

“Nothing, Edelgard, I--” Byleth searches every line of her face, knowing so intimately, now. Her thumb moves from her lip to her chin to her cheek to her brows, feeling to way muscles ease beneath her touch, and she realizes something simple, it tastes almost foreign on her tongue. “You make me feel..." And here she is, a woman whose features twist and twist into curious, new depths, fingertips dipping into water-- "...human.” 

Byleth settles on--a person, not an emotion. These...fairytale stories of history and worlds so far apart from Byleth’s reach, fingers skimming along pages like they'd skimmed along dirt, so far away from smiles and laughter and tears. A person, who might have had a childhood and grown up in a home and gone to school instead of teaching it--a person who might have fallen in love or fallen in hate or fallen in anything but a darkness she had to cut out of--but more than that, a person, who's done everything she's done regardless. Who doesn't keep time--who doesn't understand emotions--who has never had a love, before Edelgard. Who sees herself through Edelgard's unwavering eyes and knows, without a doubt, that Edelgard keeps all her keepsakes in Byleth's heart like a box. 

"Oh, Byleth..." Edelgard murmurs against the callouses of her hands--of the very flesh of a sword who was an extension of a crest, wielded under Edelgard's name-- "Don't you understand you make me feel the same?" 

Byleth understands people, from afar--she always has. She knows how they think and move and plot; she knows how they are in battle, and has watched them outside of it, for years. 

Byleth is one of them, now, and it's not something Edelgard's given her, but it's something she's helped her see.

"...good." She settles on, again, staring down at Edelgard on this table, her hand not falling away when Linhardt and Hanneman turn around, to visible conflict and relief in Edelgard's eyes as they come closer. "Relax, Edelgard." It's gentle--gentler, maybe, than either standing professor or student are used to hearing. "You're safe here."

Edelgard sags into the table and clings to her wrist but nods, voice strong and unwavering despite her closed eyes.

"I'm ready." 

She's not, Byleth knows, but Edelgard has never stalled her own ambitions for readiness and the next minute, the room is haunted by a ghastly purple hue and the tightening of fingers in Byleth's unwavering hand.

\--

**_Horsebow Moon, 1188._ **

Her hand quivers.

_I'll be a demon for you, El._

Maybe that's all a demon is, Byleth realizes, Dorothea's blade stabbing upwards through a jaw as she kicks another soldier down by his chest as a lumbering, inexperienced brute advances on her, mercilessly tugging it out the swishing steel before throwing the dagger at her hip across the battlefield into a mage's chest, watching him crumple to the ground in a pitiful whimper of surprise. Their eyes are full of fear and sorrow and pain, not entirely different from Dorothea as the Ashen Demon snaps a lance upward and breaks its hilt, raising the Earth around them in columns in fire, the scent of it filling lungs with smoke and heat and _screams._

Something propels her forward. Something pushes Byleth past the stone slowly encroaching upon bones and her chest and her breath--something pounding horse hooves against a strong heart urges her to _fight_ as she always has. As she always will. She fights, ferociously--calculated--calm, no fear at her spine and no ache in her chest. No worry of Dorothea or Ferdinand or Leonie or Edelgard. No worry of wars or slithering or people she's lost. She _fights_ \--

And when the dust clears and the fire burns high, an entire company is felled to it, wavering beneath pain as she stumbles forward to pull Edelgard's dagger from the slumped form of a gasping mage, putting him out of his misery. She takes little time to unwrap her bandage and clean her shoulder once the threat has cleared, wrapping a strip of her torn shirt around a bare shoulder, idly wiping away an ember that's fallen on her bra before she stands, tucking the dagger safely in its pouch and continuing South towards the mountains. 

Perhaps a demon is just a human trying to find its way _home_. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a lot of personal, strong opinions about a lot of things in this chapter, so I felt it was important to include them all. Particularly the subject of Byleth's humanity. If anyone has any comments, questions, or things to yell, please let me know!
> 
> Until next time :')


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